Out of Captivity : Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle

Running on Empty319“That does say something, doesn’t it?” I responded, asking the questionas much to myself as to Marc.Since we’d been in captivity, I’d had nothing but time to think aboutmy past. I’d thought a lot about why my first marriage had failed, whyit had taken me six years to finally commit to marrying Malia, why Isometimes found it easier to go outside my relationships and find comfortin the arms of other women. I’d been running from something,figuring always that if I played it fast and loose, I couldn’t be caughtin any kind of trap of expectations and demands. I was a pretty selfishson of a bitch, truth be told. I figured that since I was a good dad to mykids and a single parent tackling the responsibilities of being a caregiverand provider, the world owed me my little moments of steppingout and finding pleasure wherever I could.Funny as it was, it took being captive for me to start realizing that mychoices before the crash had imprisoned me much like the FARC had.I also realized that the world didn’t owe me a damn thing. What we’vegot in this life is equal to what we give. I didn’t believe that I deserved tobe held hostage, but it sure as hell was a huge wake-up call that let meknow that standard operating procedure before the crash would haveeventually led me to some other kind of crisis. It was time I stepped upand applied the principles the Marine Corps had instilled in me, theprinciples I’d allowed to become diluted, to my personal life. It seemedto me that Patricia was doing a pretty good job of teaching by example.Just because you do something wrong doesn’t mean you walk away;you stick around and make things better.Whether it was because of Patricia or just because of the order ofthings, I was on an uptick in terms of hope. I can’t say shares were at anall-time high, but they had definitely rebounded with this new group incharge of us. The camp was one of the nicer ones we’d been placed in.Just having guards posted on the perimeter with no fences enclosingus did a lot for me psychologically, and knowing that our border waseasily penetrated made it easier for me to put up with some other parts