He had returned for a short time, spending a few months with his family partway through a campaign that he knew would either take more time than he understood or take his life. He was alright with either one. He knew that both were essential and they both needed to be done at some point. He didn’t really care which one came first as long as they were both being done for the same reason.

He had spent time with his family. He had spent time alone. He had spent time working. He had spent time waiting. All of it was in the service of a greater purpose that he felt deep down from the very pit of his soul. He knew that he was there to learn and to wait and to train so that he might go back, that one day he might travel back to the area of his mission and try again.

He didn’t feel as though he had failed. Now, there wasn’t condemnation he felt. It was isolation. He didn’t know anyone here anymore. There were circles of people that recognized him from years ago but they didn’t know who he was now. They didn’t understand what he had been through or even what he believed. They didn’t know who he was anymore.

They thought that he was the same serving, helpful and perhaps copacetic young man that have moved away several years ago. And he was in some extent but in others, he had taken on a far different role and he had looked toward a way of life that seemed very strange to them. Those who actually did know him had questioned him on this. They would ask him questions like, “What are you doing with your abilities? How are you using your talents down there in your mission?” He would look at them and decide whether or not he could explain it within a few years of talking than to answer very simply or very succinctly and he would always be honest but he could never tell the full story. He was between two worlds. Nobody back in his home world even understood the reasons that he was doing what he was doing, much less what he was actually doing and this burdened him.

He carried it around like a weight on his shoulders, trying to make sense of it, trying to understand if he somehow had actually gone off the deep end like some of them probably thought he had. But every night, when he put his head on his pillow and he closed his eyes, the things that he saw there and the things that he knew were really important were still around. Every single night, he could see those things and he knew that what he was doing was moving in the right direction.

He couldn’t have said that for every aspect of his life nor could he have looked back on every decision that he had made and said that it was all in the service of this greater purpose but he knew that these were. These decisions mattered but the things he was working on now and the beliefs that he had and the stands that he was taking were actually in the service of a greater purpose that nobody else needed to understand.

It wasn’t enough to simply paint a picture on the wall and say, “This is what I’m doing with my time,” or to look at the future and say, “I believe. I would like to have that door, please. Can we open that one and see what’s behind it?” That wasn’t enough. There had to be something greater driving what he was doing. It had to be based on a standard that was not his own and if that meant that the people who asked him that question didn’t know enough about that standard or about his specific journey to achieve it, achieve the goals, then that was OK. Then he knew that that was the price he would pay for living the lifestyle that he had chosen.

So he worked. He waited. He slept. He played. He went places, stayed home and mostly, he dedicated himself to the pursuit of this lifestyle – one that would lead him home.