There but for the grace of God...

It's still not easy to feel I am turning away from the dream I've held for years and years.  Yet, there is something to be grateful for in having been given another path to journey down.  The video below absolutely makes me cry.  Yet it makes me feel relieved that I am going into another profession that has a bit more job security and I am not struggling to make it work from season to season.  Now, this isn't to say I will completely forget my friends in the green and gray.  I hope one day to develop a partnership between say the VA or WWP and the NPS.  Or, possibly, one day when the money returns, there could be new positions developed which would allow me to do therapeutic recreation while wearing my cherished flat hat.  That would be sweet.  For now, however, the parks have to face problems, mostly budgetary and best summed up in a short video from Today:

National Parks Budgets Shrink as Costs Grow

It was hard this spring when I delivered a presentation to a group of mostly undergraduate students on how to become a park ranger and what it's like once you land the job.  I couldn't help but be so excited and proud of what I'd done and then have to tell them it's nearly impossible to get that kind of fantastic job now a days.  This past semester has done a lot in helping me develop leadership skills, which I really didn't even know I had.  I mean, I can think of so many other people who would be more qualified to be leaders.  Yet, throughout the semester several people have looked up to me.  They thought I was cool because I had been a park ranger.  They valued my opinion or admired my work ethic.  It was kind of weird actually.  Although, if I am perceived as a leader by my peers, and expected to be one by my professors, then that is a rather humbling and empowering thought indeed.