No washers available

I haven’t written in a while.  I didn’t know what to say.  Recently, I met a really sincere new friend and he told me, don’t worry about what to write, don’t worry if you think it’s stupid or inconsequential.  If you thought it, it’s worthy.  Write it, even if it’s just that you got pissed today because there were no washers available. 

Yesterday I decided to be super productive and get the internet in my room fixed and do some laundry.  I stopped by the laundry place, and 4 washers were open.  JACKPOT!  I returned to my room, grabbed my dirty laundry, raced back to the laundry trailer and WHAM!  NO WASHERS AVAILABLE.  All 4 of them were now cycling away with other people’s dirty underwear.  Also, the internet place claimed to fix my internet and it still doesn’t work.  Super productive day out the window.

In 5 minutes time, my decision to go get my clothes changed everything.  I missed the opportunity to wash them.  In the grand scheme of life, this decision will be insignificant, but what about the decisions that aren’t? 

My freshman year of college I crossed a 4 lane, one-way street and got clipped by a car because the light turned green.  I ended up being a little bruised, but not much more.  What if I had chosen to step out just 2 steps later?  I would have been full-on hit and God knows what would’ve happened. 

So much is left up to fate, God, whatever you want to call it, but then so much more we have to decide ourselves as well.  I’m a 25 year old grown-ass adult.  I have big life changing decisions to make.  But how do I decide what to choose myself and what to leave up to something bigger?  When I made my decision to come to Afghanistan, somebody asked me how did you know you could do it.  I said because I never for one second doubted I couldn’t.  Now that may sound ridiculously stupid, like I didn’t put much time into the thought process of heading into an active war zone, but I did.  I thought and pondered and questioned for a really long time, but all throughout that process something inside me always said, there’s no way you won’t. 

Maybe it’s the fear of regret that propels me.  Maybe it’s because I’ve lost too many people at too young of ages that it resonates in me that life’s too short.  Maybe I’m bat shit crazy.  Whatever it is, I’m glad I am this way.  It’s the only way I know how to be and it fits me.  I’m living the kind of life I’ve imagined.