Wherever I go, there I am
The idea goes something like this: Write a little bit about your place in the world. How you got there, why you're there, why you won't leave, why you would leave.

I've been thinking about this sort of thing quite a bit lately. I've had a run of "How did I get here?" moments in the last month or so. How did I come to be driving a Lincoln Town Car down Washington Highway 16 with Mount Rainier looming in the sunrise? How did I come to be getting out of that Lincoln Town Car and into a first-class seat on a cross-country flight? How did I come to be eating on the roof of the Hotel Washington, looking down at the snipers (at least we thought they were the snipers) perched atop the White House? How did I come to be speaking Danish while drinking Czech beer in a bar in Washington, D.C.? How did I come to be living in a 2,400-square-foot house with a tall, beautiful, fun wife and three kids who are already smarter and funnier than me?

See, this story started out to be a story about geography; how a guy from Anytown, USA, could wind up on the west coast of Florida via Cincinnati, Orlando, Texas and Orlando again. How a guy who didn't cross the Missouri state line until he was 12 and who didn't own a home computer until 1999 could find himself jetting all over the country, telling people how to use their computer systems.

It's been a strange run, and I'm wondering how I got here.

For the first time in my entire life, I'm not wondering what's next.

This could be because I'm fast approaching my 36th birthday. The line marking "old" is now behind me, at least by my standards.

This could be because I actually enjoy what I'm doing now, something new and fun and challenging (and at the same time frustrating and frightening). I'm learning a lot about a subject in which I'm intensely interested, and I'm getting paid. Kind of feels like I'm beating the system.

This could be because I don't really care what's next; because I'm trying to milk the very most out of right now.

This could be because what's next kind of scares me. I'm closer to 40 than I am to 30. Like it or not, the clock is ticking. Forty years from now, there's a very good chance I'll be dead.

Yeah, that's kind of a blunt way to put it. But that's kind of my point. The end comes eventually. When my end comes, I'll be ready to answer the question, "What did you do with your life?" in the following way:

I did whatever I wanted to do.

They say happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want, or something like that. I don't claim to know what happiness is. That's for greater minds than mine to decide. But right now, I'm doing what I want to do. I'm living the life I want to live with the people with whom I want to live it.

How did I get here?

It doesn't really matter, as long as I'm where I want to be. And I am.