This time around, the #weekend-engagement topics posed some great questions to write about. One of those topics that I happened to choose was; "What three things do you take for granted and why?"
I hate to say it, but I have become soft and domesticated as age and health has slowed me down. That in turn as left me taking everyday things like a roof over my head, water, and food for granted. My wife might say she is taken for granted as well, but I assure you she is not. She is Heaven sent and thankful for her everyday.
Anyway, we have home, water, and food as something I now realize I take for granted. You would think someone who has experienced things I have would never do that.
There are times I have went days (longest was just over 3 weeks I think) without a bath or shower, used water from streams and rivers in countries that can, and did, give me the raging shits and needed iodine tabs to help make it drinkable.
My wife still loved me.
The stars have been my ceiling for days. The weather be damned. There wasn't four walls to keep the cold wind from cutting you through like a knife. No roof to protect from the freezing rain or boiling sun. Definitely no heating, air, or indoor plumbing that my fat ass has become accustomed to in these last 15 or so years.
Oh, forgot there was no recliner
Three square meals a day? Hell, I can graze like a f-ing heifer all day long. The fridge is full and the lovely wife keeps it that way. I miss no meals these days, my waist line is proof. However, there have been times, just like with water and a home, that food has been something that needed rationed. Eating one what we called an MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) per day. That MRE itself is stripped down to just the main meal, and leaves one very hungry when you are burning thousands of calories everyday.
Not a diet plan I recommend.
Not sure how to explain why I would take these things for granted now, but I do. I wish I didn't, and after writing this I may pay it a little more of my attention moving forward.
Above there was the statement I jokingly made to the effect I am domesticated now, but I think there is some truth in that joke. There was a time when I loved to live on the edge, challenge the limits of my body and mind in austere environments, but no longer.
Some days I sit and think about those challenging days and look upon them fondly. Then I stir from my daydreaming. Get off my butt, head to the fridge and make a sandwich, get some clean water from the faucet, and sit in a dry cool house for the summer and enjoy another documentary.
Thanks for reading,
Joe
