Time For Reflection

Being responsible for another person is a great thing.

I am responsible for Joshua because he moved to Minneapolis to be with me. He has no family in Minneapolis, except that my family has now become his family, too. He had no friends in Minneapolis before he moved here, although he now has made friends with people at church and at the bookstore where he works.

Josh's career plans are on hold, for now. He gave up law school to move to Minneapolis, which did not please his father. Josh might still enroll in law school, but he is more likely to enroll in graduate school, because Josh truly wants to be an historian, not a lawyer. However, Josh has no genuine interest in teaching--his interests are in research and writing.

Josh has decided not to pursue graduate school until the 2008-2009 school term. He still wants to settle into Minneapolis before deciding what he wants to do long-term, and he has decided that two years is the right amount of time for him to sit back and reflect and decide what he wants to do.

The job in the bookstore is only part-time, and it only pays enough for Josh to make his IRA contribution and little else, but it gets him out of the apartment each day, and it enables him to keep up with the publishing field, and it allows him to keep abreast of new books of note. It provides him with a low-pressure job and something to do while he ponders longer-term plans.

I think that it is good that Josh has this time for reflection, and that this time be free of all stress. Josh has had difficulties in life that no young person needs, and a period of no-pressure contemplation is precisely the right antidote, I believe. He is free to pursue his own plans on his own schedule, free from financial worries and without artificial time constraints.

Josh gets the intellectual stimulation he needs--we read, seriously, all the time, and that is the stimulation Josh loves most of all, but we also go out and do interesting things whenever possible--and he gets friendship, and companionship, and love and affection, and emotional support, and the constance of a kindred spirit. I think he has what he needs, right now, and I think he will always get what he needs, in the future.

I have noticed, in the last year, that Josh is no longer as moody as he was when I first met him. He is happy now, and content.

I know this because I can see it in his eyes.