I know that it's very rare that I make a blog post, but I feel like I have a lot to talk about for once. And it's almost been a full year since my last post!
So to begin I'll say that I signed up for the military in June of 2014. My ship out date to go to basic training was set for October 7th so I had about 3.5 months to enjoy as a civilian. Though there were a lot of military mandated appointments I had to attend and I was put in charge of the others in the DEP (Delayed Enlistment Program) like myself and that was a job in itself.
But I took an amazing vacation to Colorado with my family in July and the next week I attended Afest and cosplayed for the very first time (as Cop!Rin and Cop!Sousuke if no one remembers!) and it was amazing, but I also knew it would be the last convention I attended for a long time.
Eventually the end of September rolled around and Mar and I celebrated our birthdays together and it was absolutely amazing. So many wonderful people attended and I had never had such an extravagant or elaborate birthday. Growing up I had only ever had one "birthday party" and it was simply a few of the neighbor kids coming over for cake, so this was beyond anything I had ever imagined.
And almost everyone at the party knew that I would be shipping out in a week and a half and I was overwhelmed with cards saying how much I'd be missed and people constantly telling me that they'd miss me and that they couldn't wait till I came back. To say my ego was huge was quite the understatement.
Right one schedule I left for basic training a week and a half later and then from the moment I stepped off of the plane at the airport and was yelled at to sit in a line by the windows and turn our cellphones off I was cut off from all of the outside world (aside from letters and the occasional payphone call to my family when we were given the privilege) for 2 months.
For 2 months I endured a rigid schedule, some days were full of classes and others we were marching here, marching there. I met so many new and different people. It was quite the experience, I mean hell, I was even subjected to tear gas. Now that was interesting. But I counted down the days until that final weekend when my family would be there to see me graduate. We all lived Sunday to Sunday for 8.5 weeks and when that day finally came I had never felt such happiness. From Friday until Sunday I got to see my family on a daily basis, they were there for numerous ceremonies, and even when we said our goodbyes on Sunday night I wasn't too upset because I knew I'd see them again in 2 weeks when I got to go home for the holidays.
And after they had left we were all shipped out to our respective schools. And that was when I was able to reconnect with the outside world, to a point. Around 1am we were loaded onto a buss and drove for 10 hours, no idea of what our destination had in store for us.
I arrived at tech school on December 8th and after a week of formal briefings we started classes, where I was informed that my school was the longest there and that I wouldn't be graduating until the middle of July, if I didn't fail a test in between and wash back into a class behind ours. It was stressful and again I lived weekends to weekends. And about halfway through school the workout schedule changed, so Monday, Wednesday and Friday we had to be outside by 4:00 so we could start our workout. Class was from 6:00am to 3:00pm and we marched a mile there and back every day. We marched so much that I even bought a fitness tracker to keep track of just how much we were moving! I averaged about 6 miles a day, just walking! More if we ran that morning.
I found ways to keep myself from going insane though. I made some amazing friends, joined the drill team and eventually became the head of the team as members graduated and moved on. I truly felt like a part of something. That group of people looked up to me and even as I handed over my power to my successor they still came to me with questions and whenever they got a rifle move down because of my help it was amazing to see the light in their eyes.
I can truly say that without the people I met and the things I did (good and bad, I did a few questionable things during my time there) I wouldn't have gotten through with the amount of sanity left that I had.
And eventually the middle of July arrived and I finally graduated. It was amazing, knowing that I had essentially gone through 2 years of college in 8 months (with the credit hours to prove it) and we were finally on our way out! During my time there I had been given order to go to Washington State and that's another part of what kept me going. To imagine living in such a beautiful state with so many opportunities to get out and meet new people and just be surrounded by nature pushed me to work harder and to keep my eyes on the future.
Now throughout my 10 months away from home I lost contact with a lot of people. Fights were had, fallouts as well, and with a schedule of 40+ class hours a week, not including whatever they had us doing AFTER class, I had a hard time staying in contact with the few that did still talk with me. For a long time I was angry. I felt lied to, cast aside and alone. But looking back at it now, I ostracized myself. I essentially fell out of BOKUTACHI and I spent all of my free time with drill team or out with friends, some weekends spent drunk until a bad decision was made one weekend and I knew I couldn't let myself get that drunk again.
I spent about 3 weeks back home before driving up to WA, and I truly felt the consequences of my actions then. Before I left I didn't have enough time to hang out with everyone that wanted to see me, but then I had too much time and no one to spend it on. I saw a total of 3 friends while I was home on leave, 1being a friend from the past who showed up at my door one day after a random chat on FB, knowing nothing of my enlistment until I told her. It was lonely, but I knew that my actions were what caused all of my pain in those 3 weeks.
And now that I'm in a new place... I'm learning how to be happy here.
I see Mt. Rainier every day as I drive to work and as I drive home (if it isn't raining or too cloudy) and I'm meeting a lot of new people.
I'm learning how to be a better person.
I'm learning who I am again, learning to recognize the person in the mirror again.
All while learning what the military needs me to know.
Downtown Seattle from the Space Needle
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