Dave,

I know it's always a dangerous thing to write when you're emotional... because in some senses you make the feeling immortal. But I've also learned enough about myself to realize that I'm going to do it anyways, that when something is going on in my heart, I'll talk about it a lot.

Commitment, Dave, it's all about commitment. You can't really do anything worthwhile without it. But I squirm, man, I squirm when I feel it coming close. I'm practicing the idea of commitment in Tae Kwon Do right now. I've committed to fight at Nationals, which means an average of 2 work-outs every day. Getting beat up a few times. Waking up to my alarm at 5:15 every weekday morning to go workout. It's hard. Testing my patience and my commitment. But I think I'm learning to just keep going. I often tell myself "You don't have to like it. You just have to do it. (And since you're doing it, you might as well give it all you've got.)"

And the even bigger topic..... girls! I'm exaggerating here, but I have this vision in my mind of hooking up with a girl, committing, if you will, and then being taken from the wilderness, being clean shaven, take away my survival knife and lock it in a drawer in the basement, buy us a house, bury me in the mortgage, put my life on a hampster wheel where I get up and go to work every freakin morning for the rest of my life, come home to dirty diapers and have to help wash the dishes after dinner. I look outside the kitchen window when I'm doing the dishes and see the sunset. I remember when I once saw the sunset over the South China Sea, or when I saw the sunset from my debris hut I made in the forest. Then I go sit on the porch and brood, and become the guy in Drury's poem.

I know that sentiment is not right, and it's not even entirely how I feel, but it does help illustrate some of my fears. I think my fears are wrong, Dave. I once wrote, "Love is the warrior's final frontier." Do I have what it takes to fight that kind of battle? To fight for a girl? Fight for my true heart amidst the reality of responsibility? Can I fight to have a pertpetually soft heart and a free spirit? Can I win?
I don't know a whole lot right now, Dave. I'm fighting with myself more than anything. Everybody around me is telling me to relax. I know I need to. Or I might call it "trust." God knows me so well. I have yet to know myself so well. It is my prayer that he will whisper to me which way to walk.

Walking, relaxing,
Jarod