Last blog for the day before I go and grab some sleep. I have had about 2 hours I think for the day, and even though I can go till my normal sleep, I want to get just a little extra tonight.
This topic hit my mind just as I popped in my ear buds and fired up my music on the laptop and played one of the jazz songs I listen to.

The other day I was asked why I was always so early to go into work, we have 8 hour shifts for my job and most don’t really want to be out of the CHU early, but I am sitting at the bus stop an hour early. One day a few asked me why, I gave them a bs reason why I am out there, because quite frankly I just don’t think they would understand. I said I just like to be early always, and that is true but it isn’t the reason why I sit out there for an hour.

As corny as this might sound, I do that to listen to my MP3 player with no one bugging me or talking to me, and I also watch the sunset as well.
I love music, when I was in Basic besides my family that was the hardest thing not having, my music. To me a good song is great as any masterpiece of art, and I love art as well, so that should tell you something. The melody, the flow of notes and voices combining into one, nothing can be better for the soul. At times I just listen to the music after doing my job, it helps me put it to the back of my mind, even if just for a few minutes. Every day I see reports of death, this many civilians killed in an IED attack, mortar attack, murder by some group just because they had a store the other group wanted, all I do every day is read about death and pain. It weighs on you just as much as looking at it. I read all this to understand the enemy and try and defeat them, and it burdens you to know these things, to look into the mind of darkness, of pure evil, to try and understand them and predict them to beat them.

So when the music starts to flow all that gets pushed away for even just a few minutes, I let all the melodies, the instruments and soft voices just flow through me and take it away.

The other reason why I am early every day is to watch the sun set, because to me each day is very precious. You know that saying, stop and smell the roses, well that is the reason. I have to admire beauty in everything and every day. From the sunset, to a gorgeous lady, to wild flowers in a field or a flock of birds flying through the air. I take it all in, why, well the simple answer is this, I don’t know when the next time I will get to see it will be. I have been legally dead twice in my life, I do not take a single moment for granted, each sunset is another day I made it through, another moment I get to savor. It also puts in stark contrast the reality of the times we live in, of the evil that pervades the world. When I look upon those golden rays streaming through the air coloring the clouds a radiant pink, purple, gold and copper color it helps me deal with the darkness I see overlaid on the world.
Each day, music and the setting sun help me to move onto the next day, it makes me also think of why I am here right now, to make a better world for my kids, my wife, my friends and the innocent that bleed so often.

Many I work with don’t know how poetic I really am or my true thoughts, they see me as the guy who marches on despite all that is through against him, I keep one foot falling in front of the other for a reason.

Through this fog of night I have glimpsed the dawn.