I'm gonna run, run, run

Today I had what I like to call a breakthrough run. you see it's been more then a year since I've run seriously, and for the year before that I only ran when I had to. Meaning I only ran when the Marine Corps made me. But before that I was a fairly serious runner. I could log 7ish minute miles on a very good day, I'd run up to 50 miles a week. I started getting serious about running a marathon. So I trained, and it got interrupted with a depolyment, then started training again, deployment again. That's when I stopped running seriously.
Anyway, here I am at this small base in Afghanistan, not in good shape at all, haven't run much in forever, and today I decided to run a marathon. Well, I'm not going to run it today, of course but I want to run one. I setting my sights on September.
But this run I went on today, it's a tough run, and the only one out here really. It's a two mile course around the outside of the base. About 2/3 of it is uphill, and 1/3 is downhill. I've ran it a few times before and I've always had to stop running because it's just a tough run. I couldn't handle it. At first it was because I wasn't in good enough shape, then it became a mental issue, I just didn't have the drive to make it up this hill over a mile long.
Ah, but today was different. I started running on the downhill portion, where I always start. It was easy at first, which is typically a bad sign, because that usually means that I will crash in the end. But I kept going. And when it got tough, I kept going. I slowed waaaaaaay down, but I kept going. And I finished. It was only two miles, but it was a tough two miles. And it was a run that I haven't been able to complete before. I'm not too excited, because I may go out there tomorrow and completely fail, but now I know I can do it. And now I know I'm ready to start training.

Almost...

It's a phrase I've heard a lot lately, "I almost did this," or "I almost did that."

And I was thinking to myself, I don't really have a lot of those "almosts." If there is something that I really want to do, I usually do it. Looking back I don't see a lot of missed opportunities. Or a lot of things I didn't at least try to do. I wasn't always successful, but at least I tried.

Of course, that's probably why I'm sitting in Afghanistan writing this, single, and without a lot of worldly possessions. And why I'm even now considering opportunities(more then one) that would take me to The Dark Continent sometime within the next year or so.

My brother and sister are both married, with children and normal jobs and they're happy. And I wonder if I'll ever get to be that way. I'm loving life, traveling around the world, seeing different things, experiencing different cultures and I'm gathering some great stories along the way. And a part of me loves it.

But then there's this other part of me that just wants to settle down, get a normal job and a house and the white picket fence and the whole deal, and I wonder if I'd ever be happy with that.

For the last decade really I've sort of gone where the wind blows, chasing whatever happened to interest me at that moment. I won't lie, it's been great, but that part of me that wants to settle down has been getting stronger and stronger lately, and I'm just left to wonder, how do people do it?