Transitions

Everywhere I turn, I see transitions.

This summer marks the fourth major transition in my life. You'd think I'd get used to the feelings of anxiety, but it never seems to get any easier. Every change is the first transition, every change is the only transition.

The first big shift was leaving home and heading off to Basic Training (actually OSUT for us combat arms types). Sacrificing civilian freedoms for military discipline is a complete adjustment of expectation and awareness. Every morning was a new challenge, every day I woke wondering whether I had what it took to continue. The only real credit I can offer myself is that I continued to move forward. I did not do this so much from my own resilient spirit as the fear of shameful capitulation. I could not fail to finish. It was a necessary transition though, a needed preparation for what awaited me.

The second transition wasn't our first deployment. Even the initial months where an extended tour of my time in garrison. We trained, we wandered through the mountains. Our magazines were full, but our guard was down and I remained unprepared. Things changed with combat. The first rockets slamming into our firebase served as a wake up call, a reminder that the Army was more than wargames and tough guy posturing. I do not know how well I met this challenge. I only know that I came through it. I may not be a hero, but I was not a coward either. Still, my time in the service made clear that it was not my bliss. It was time for an exit.

This third change, my exit from the army, was in many ways the most difficult. After years of doing as I was told, the return to civilian life and the weight of being my own man was a heavy burden. As the Army's man I simply had to obey, now I had to think, and act. I was better and worse for this, but I have finished and am now looking at the path ahead.

I'm about to exit the surreal world of academia, and go to work in a prison. I'm not sure what the future holds, I only know that it will be a new awareness and a new perspective. It is one I look to embrace. I want to be better than I was. I want to be better than I am. I have come through much, and await a fresh awareness.