I love my job, right?

Two afternoons ago I was diving on the 2pm boat with a middle aged woman and two young teenage girls. I haven't been diving alot in the last two weeks while Matt has been gone so this was about the 3rd dive in 5 days. The two teen girls didn't speak alot of English so one of the girl's mothers translated. I was expecting just another Ho-hum dive. Cold water, not alot to see, etc. The site was Pyramid so we had a very short boat ride from the marina. I had kind of forgotten about Fred(or Ted, whatever his name is) the grouper that we are trying to socialize like Bob(RIP). About two minutes into the dive he swam up next to me from behind and scared me. The girls all thought it was really cool to be able to touch a fish and Fred isn't a small grouper either. So we petted him for a few minutes and then swam along to see a turtle on it's way to the surface for some air and two reef sharks. The girls loved it! It was the first dive here at Columbus for all three and they all came up smiling. As I was kicking back to the boat I turned over on my back to check on the 3 divers as usual and I had a moment. Not a senior moment but one where I realized that I do love my job. Looking back on where I've been because of diving and dreaming and planning my future with diving makes me happy. My 9 months here at Columbus have had some ups and downs but when I think about it, it all comes down to exploring the undersea world with people that makes me happy. Sometimes you just need a littler perspective...