Six Years Ago Today

Six years ago today I first took the oath of enlistment. I can't really believe how fast time has flown, in a way it's kind of scary to notice how as the older you get, the faster time goes by.

Before I know it, I'll have grey hair and require a walker. *shivers*

Of course, just turning 19, only five months out of High School, I honestly didn't know what I was getting myself into. A part of me was enlisting for the adventure that was the army, another part of me was seeking out a way to gain my independence from my family, in a way to 'grow up'. And a part of me just didn't know what I was going to do.

The latter part of me still remains going strong. Though I often look back in my time in the army, and just after getting back from training and going to school, I wished that I had waited to get my AA degree first and then went active duty. Sometimes I dwell a bit in the past, trying to figure out how life would be if I had done something different. But then I realized something as I looked back on my life in general.

For all the bad things that have taken place, as the timeline flows something happens as a result of each and every choice I make, directly and indirectly. I could look back and think to myself 'yeah, it would have been better if I had done that instead', but do I really know this for certain? They say Hindsight is 20/20, but in truth, you still don't know every consequence that will happen with that action.

So, do I look back and wish I had done it differently? The answer is no, because what good has come out of my life in the last six years may never have happened, I've learned a lot about myself and have had experiences I may have never encountered otherwise. And I don't know if doing it differently would have produced the same results, or had even made it worse.

I do realize that upon my enlistment I probably should have picked a more compatable MOS, but I wouldn't have had the experiences I had or met the people I had met if I had done it any other way. I enlisted when I did for a reason and I'm where I am at for a reason.

For a long time I had often dwelled on the what ifs, looking back on this deployment even, I realized that maybe things weren't perfect, but a lot of good stuff happened that may never have happened otherwise.

Now the question is, should I reenlist? And what will the future bring?