The past two weeks have been surreal. A sudden break from the mundane life of training and rapidly switching from one thing to another. I just came back from taiwan two weeks ago but it already feels like such a distant memory, so many different seasons has passed in this short span of time.
Touchdown. Last day of pro term. One day of rest. CAT lectures. LLD. CAT lectures. Parade rehearsals. Parade.
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48 hours, I told myself. Make it count.
Now watch and wait.
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CAT zoomed by quickly as expected, and it was pretty mundane for most of it. Parade rehearsals were pretty intense but it wasn't all that bad. Before you know it, its the parade and now I'm officially a 3SG.
What does it mean to attain the rank? Before, it was liberation from cadet life. As CAT progresses, it becomes a responsibility, a burden. Gradually it didn't seem all that appealing anymore, especially with what life attaining it may bring. Then comes slow acceptance, that with it comes influence, the chance to make something out of this ns life. Acceptance felt difficult, but it was necessary to find the purpose in all that I am doing here. Then suddenly with the posting order, liberty. The burden is gone and there is hope for the future.
In the past two weeks I kept asking myself one question, 'what is my purpose here in ns?' You cannot find joy in doing something you do not believe there is a purpose in. I confront the truth that every day in camp for ever since I enlisted in ns, I live it as if it were a false reality just needing to be endured. And endure I do, hiding in my own shell, living in my own dreamscapes I create in my mind letting the time trickle by. I find that there is no joy in my life in those times. I find that those moments are of no worth for it is as if I might have simply ceased to exist. I become like another person altogether, and not who I really am.
I do know the answer to the question, but I could never quite live it out. The world was harsh and I couldn't face it squarely. I have not been living the life that I have been called to live. That must not continue. I cannot be two different persons. The walls must come down.
Now the opportunity arises. I have wasted far too much time in the past seven and a half months and it's time for that to change.
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There were really so many things on my heart and mind these past two weeks, and I felt truly alive. So many thought progressions, so many questions, so many answers. New experiences opened up, learnt from, and closed shut. One leading to another. Perhaps its part of making up for lost time, I felt like whatever I had missed for the past months drifting were condensed into two weeks.
What now? This certainly is a new chapter in more ways than one. A historical moment. We will see marvelous light.
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