Somewhere yesterday, between getting in the car to go to work and getting home, I made the mental commitment that I was going to finish getting my book ready for print.
I went through and did my last check of the fifth draft. Today I'll convert it to the approved template, print it tomorrow, and then do another edit job. At least one more print out draft and edit then upload, leaving only the cover to design the marketing plan to finish.
It's curious, as if I reflect on things it's not often I make this kind of commitment and (apparently) am going to see it through. What changed? Certainly not the drive to work or my environment, nor virtually anything else about my life.
Except remembering a gift from Uisdean Ruadh.
A year or two ago I received a package from him in the mail. Upon opening it, I found a medal issued to commemorate World War II. On one side is a figure of Victory in front of the sunset with the words "World War II". On the back in an outer circle is "United States of America 1941-1945"; in the middle are the Four Freedoms of Roosevelt: "Freedom from Fear and Want; Freedom of Speech and Religion." In asking him about it, he said that he had sent it to me as a reminder that as hard as things seemed to be (in his life and my own), they were not nearly as hard as the men who fought in World War II.
I have kept the medal at my bedside since then but not really thought of it - until (because yesterday was June 6th - D-Day), it leapt out at my mind. Surely, the thought came, if men could willing hurl themselves up beaches into withering fire, I can at least accept responsibility for making my own commitments and own life, even if it meant not getting a little bit of sleep.
I'm not going to say I've totally climbed that hill yet - but I've decided to start taking the medal with me where I go, to work or at my writing desk or wherever, as a continued reminder that whatever what I am called to do, it's more manageable that the last sounds of the boat ramp dropping and the surf rolling in as the firing starts.
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