the uncertainty of being a human

The speaker discusses their struggle with change and the impact it has had on their life. They share personal anecdotes about their experiences with making decisions that didn't go according to plan, such as enlisting in the military and pursuing a career in recruiting. They reflect on the importance of accepting and embracing uncertainty, and the need to take ownership of their own mistakes and decisions. The speaker also mentions the stress they experienced and the development of food allergies during this time. Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of Anecdotes with Alex. I'm Alex, your host forever, because this is my podcast. Crazy. Anyway, thank you so much for tuning in for another week. This week, we are looking into another piece of writing that I found on Pinterest quite a while ago when I was making my vision board or whatever for 2024. And let me just read it to you. It's called Let July... Not sorry, it's not called that. This is how it reads. Let July be July. Let August be August. And let yourself just be even in the uncertainty. You don't have to fix everything. You don't have to solve everything. And you can still find peace and grow in the wild of changing things. And that's wild because it's true. It really is true. The two parts that really kind of resonated with me of this poem or writing is just let yourself be in the uncertainty and you can still find peace and grow in the wild of changing things. And I think that's something that I really, really struggle with. Change to me means my concept and my idea of what was going to happen has been thrown off completely. Like now, I'm completely in the dark and I don't know what to do and I'm not prepared. And so for the longest time and even now, it irritates me when things change. I am such an idealist. I wish everything could just go according to plan. And it would all be so simple. My goodness, if everybody could stick to the plan, then my life would be so much less complicated. And unfortunately, that's not the way it goes. And actually, this piece reminded me of when I was like, what, 17, 18 or whatever. I was a senior in high school. And I knew exactly what my life was going to look like for the next, like up until I was 24 or something. I knew exactly where I was going to go to college. I was already looking for roommates. I knew where I was going to dorm. I figured I'd be an RA. I knew exactly how I was going to pay for college. And, you know, I figured out. I thought I was going to be on the rowing team. I think they had like a rowing team. I was like, yeah, oh, I'm going to be a bad bitch. And I'm going to join the rowing team. And as life would have it, that did not end up happening. And fast forward now to me being 23. I have not graduated from college. I am actually attending the college that was the last of my preferences. In fact, it wasn't even in my top, I'd say, five. I think I wanted to go to New York over this, which is crazy to think about. And, yeah, and so I, during that time, I made the decision to enlist in the National Guard, solely to be able to help with my family's immigration situation, as I knew they had some benefits and stuff. And, you know, my parents had come to me with disinformation. And it really is one of those things where you're put in a situation where it's like, well, if I don't do it, you know, and if I just don't take one for the team, basically, like, you know, I could just do this real quick, help my family out and move on with my life. And, you know, whatever, go back to college and be a cute little college girl. However, that did not end up happening at all, actually. And I remember very vividly one specific instance where I was going, like, to try out for a scholarship or something. And I believe it was for an all, like a full ride anywhere in the state, something like that. It was pretty prestigious, I remember it being. And we were driven, like, an hour and a half to go do interviews for it. And I was so confident. I was like, this is my bag. This is my bag. I got this. And I'm interviewing. I feel really good. And at the end, they asked me some questions. Sorry, they asked me if I had questions for them. So I brought up the fact that, you know, I enlisted. And because of this, that meant that I was going to be starting, I believe it was going to be, like, winter term, just like a term late to school. And that gagged them. They were like, oh, well, that means you're ineligible for the scholarship. And then they kind of had, like, a little mini talk or something like that. I don't remember. It's been a while. But I remember the feelings of sitting there. And basically, they came back. And the way they said it, I remember it being kind of odd. They said it in a way of kind of like you were a really strong candidate that you had in the bag. But because of this specific thing, you are ineligible for the scholarship. Come back next year, and we would absolutely love to talk to you again. Girl, no. That's the last thing I want to hear. And I remember I was like, oh, thank you so much. Girl, I was trying to hold back tears the entire time. And I go out into the little waiting room or whatever, and I just start crying. I can't even hide it. I was so, so disappointed that that was the only thing. And in that moment, I was like, God damn, I should have never enlisted. It ruined my life, like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was so, like, heartbreaking. And I cried the whole way home. I remember this, too. And God bless Ms. Matheos, my counselor. I love her. She bought me ice cream on the way back. We stopped at, like, a gas station or something. But anyways, that day made me absolutely regret my decision to enlist in the military, regardless of the reason. I knew deep down I would figure it out, right? I'd still get a way to pay for college. I'm sure, you know, the military will be of some help. Whatever, whatever, whatever. But in that moment, it just felt so, like, why can't I just have it all? And which is a very interesting also sense of, I think, like, almost entitlement and confidence, almost arrogance that some of us, I think, have when you're 18, 19, and you think the world is in your hands, and you're going to devour the world. And then, you know, consequently, you're humbled shortly thereafter. But yeah, basically, all this just to say that I wish I would have maybe come to peace with the decision and had a little bit more, I don't know how to phrase it, like, standing my ground. Like, it's okay. That's okay. Let's just move on. And I think it's totally okay to grieve decisions or possibly mistakes that we think we've made. But that is something that I do struggle with, like, that sense of, if I hadn't done this, if only, or I should have known, or if only I would have done this, then this wouldn't be happening. And it's this weird sense of control, I believe, that we want to have over our lives and that I want to have over my life. And it just throws you for such a loop when things don't go according to plan. And another example, I guess, or here's the anecdote of it all, a lot of stories about my life. In that moment, like I said, I regretted the military. I was very upset. And then I go to training, you know, almost like a year later, and I love it. I love it so much, in fact, that when I come back, I want to go active duty. I talk to my unit. I told them, send me away. Give me the paperwork. I want to leave to be active duty. I want to be a soldier so bad. And that was quite interesting because in that mindset, in that specific point in time, of course I didn't remember how terrible it felt when at some point the military was kind of my obstacle, right? And then now here I am wanting to go active duty full time, 24-7. You know, I love America. But that didn't end up happening, whatever. I just couldn't do it because I have a contract here. And then I come back from training and I'm bored at home. I get a job at Home Depot when suddenly one of the people that helped recruit me calls me up and asks if I want to have some recruiting orders and just kind of help them out with recruiting or whatever. This is during the beginning of the pandemic too. So I figured, hey, this is like a good in-between since I really wanted to go full time. This is a really good full-time opportunity and the pandemic's coming up. So it's good money because they're not going to close the army down, are they? So I do this and I'm supposed to be going to college at this time. And so I start taking a couple classes here and there. And at some point, I think the deal with those orders was that I think I was going to be on orders until August or something until I moved to college. Well, guess what? I, in that moment, no longer wanted to go to college. I wanted to be a recruiter. I wanted to do a full tour, do three years, and maybe do school intermittently like throughout those three years and maybe do it a little bit more part-time and then do a full-time job with them. And I remember I told my parents this and I did not have it, especially my dad. And it was getting heated. I remember that because I was like screaming, sorry, crying. Like I was very upset, not screaming. I can't scream. My voice never goes that high. I was crying and talking and trying to defend why I wanted to do this all of a sudden. And the only real thing I remember that I said is that if I mess up, then let it be my mess up. I am so sick and tired of doing things for other people or having other people tell me what to do. I want it to be a mess up because it's my fault and I'll take it and I'll roll with it. And you know what? That's a good point. Because I feel like that's such a brave thing to do, first of all. Being able to feel like if I mess up, that's on me. That's on me and I'm going to keep moving. That's incredibly brave. Then so, you know, fast forward a few months. I keep working with them. I'm still living with my parents. And then I'm like, you know what? It's unreal. It's time to, well, there was some like things going on in the workplace where I was at while I was still recruiting. So I was transferred across the state and I took that time to move out. And I actually ended up working with recruiting for almost another two years. And then there came a point where I became so stressed that I started developing food allergies. And that was fascinating, to say the least. Very fascinating. And during that time, I was also struggling during the latter part, I want to say. I started struggling with alcohol and those food allergies. Probably a mixture of those two. And those two kind of had, were hand in hand with like the stress. It was just a way of coping. And then the allergies were kind of the result of this way of coping and the horrible amount of stress I was under. But anyways, yeah. And then after that, I finally decided to quit that job. And I think somewhere along the way, I lost my courage because I was once so scared to quit. That's all I had known for two years, right, of like my independent adult life. I had been with that job. So to me, losing this job willingly was such a, I don't even know how to describe it. It was, it was incredibly hard. And it was completely jumping into the unknown. Like what am I going to do now? I was earning like really good money for my age. And I had a routine and everything was very expected. I had a routine. I knew when payday was coming. You know, I knew what my life looked like every single day. And all of a sudden, here I am caving into the stress, which this is what I'm thinking in the moment right now. I think now being like almost two years removed from that time in my life, I again think it was quite brave to realize that I can't keep doing this. And I need to move on and take care of myself because it was getting to the point where my body was like killing me from the inside out because of how stressed I was. Anyways, as I was saying, the uncertainty of what was going to be or what it was going to be after I quit this job was so overwhelming and paralyzing that I genuinely think that's the reason why I even stayed for so long. But honestly, after experiencing that horrid, horrid, horrid experience of just the job and the stress, I never want to feel like that again. Like I never want to let the fear of just knowing what's coming or what, you know, or not knowing what's coming. I mean, or, you know, not knowing how I'm going to handle things or what I'm going to do after things end or things begin. I never want to let that stop me from doing things and from looking out for myself again because that was terrible. And girl, if you are doing the same and you're just scared of what it's going to be like once you end or start something, just take the leap. You're going to be living through it twice anyways because you're going to be worried about it and making up scenarios all day. So you might as well just, you know, rip the band-aid off and just go do it and just live through it once instead of living through it a million times in your head, you know. But anyways, and so for some time, again, I kind of like gave back my courage. I really struggled with the idea of like, oh my gosh, I'm a flop. I couldn't even handle the stress of that. Like I'm not cut out for anything, you know. And that's when that, around that time, those like bad associations, I guess, or memories started coming back of like, oh my God, I'm a flop. I couldn't get that scholarship because I enlisted. Now look at where enlistment got me. When at some point, that's really all I wanted to do. And now, this was about two years ago, and now this is my sixth year of being in the military. And I was super, super set on doing my 20 years. I was like, you know what, matter of fact, let me do 40 and just retire out of the National Guard and, you know, I'll be good to go. Or if I go full time, I can retire by 37, basically. And I was super gung-ho. I was ready. But, ugh, girl, this last year, um, I have been an acting platoon sergeant, which has taken such a toll on my mental health because I'm doing things outside of drill. I'm having to worry about so many people and be, you know, I'm held accountable for so many people and so much equipment. And then myself. And, you know, doing a bunch of stuff, basically. And I'm only 23. And there's only so much that I feel like I can do or experience I have to do it well. But, at the end of the day, it's just the toll it takes on you, right? Like, I'm still trying to go to school. I still have a part-time job. I'm trying to handle my personal life. And, you know, a mixture of things. And my separation date is coming up in September. And for some time, for a couple months now, I've been on the fence of, should I reenlist? Should I just take a year break and see how life is without the military? And whatever, whatever, whatever. And yesterday, I worked for TJ Maxx and I was, you know, doing a little jewelry. I was in jewelry. And I was thinking, man, I think I just want to get out. I think the only reason I'm staying in is to keep it as a safety net. Because it's comfortable. Because it's certain. I know when drills are coming. I know what they expect from me. And worst case scenario, if I flop on the civilian side, I'll always have the military. And, girl, I, uh-uh, I need to start having more confidence and start being braver. And start realizing that I can't just keep having these safety nets just because I'm scared. But yeah, that is such, it occurred to me yesterday that I really don't want to keep doing this every single month. I don't want to keep packing some field drills. I don't want to be sleeping outside while it's snowing and wake up to snow in my boots. And then use, like, the vegetable little Walmart bags to put over my socks so that my socks don't get wet and I don't get frostbite or something. I, that's not something I want to be doing at 35, 45, 55. No, I don't want to be carrying around a weapon on my back waiting for some loser to tell me that, you know, my hat is on weird or that I need to have my helmet on. No. I want to be free. I want to be free. And to be free, you have to be brave. Because if I succumb to this fear of not knowing and just wanting to be comfortable just because I'm really scared of what life is going to look like post-military since that's all I've known since I was 18. Like, I, I'm going to just live a life full of regrets. And regrets of, you know, what could have been. Or how, you know, I could have lived my 20s in a different way. And I would hate, hate, hate, hate to be maybe one day in my 40s thinking back like, dang it, I wish I would have done something cooler in my 20s. Or I wish I, I don't know, would have dyed my hair pink. Something even as simple as that. Because, you know, life is too short. And life is too short to be living in fear. Just because you don't know how you're going to react. And you don't know what's coming. And you don't know how to act. Or you don't know how to plan. Or you're scared that maybe this decision is going to be the wrong end of it. Maybe if you would have stayed, it would have been the right decision. But, at the end of the day, every decision is the right decision. Every decision is the right decision. Because it's building you to be the person that you're going to and are becoming. You know, we're such fluid creatures. And I think it's so hard not to get caught up in this concept that our growth has to be linear. And we're always supposed to be progressing. And we're always supposed to be going towards this super enlightened stage. And every single step we take has to be up. No, girl. Arguably the last, like, two years have been like a step. Like, three steps down, one step up, two steps down, one step up, then seven steps up, then three down. It's like we just have to be okay with not knowing and make peace with ourselves. Like, listen, if you mess up, that is okay. Unless you're jumping off a building, you know, it's going to be okay. And, yeah, I guess I just really wanted to say that. Because I, and this is kind of like the whole thesis of the podcast in general, is almost via my own stories and my own thoughts and streams of consciousness, hoping that somebody who needs to hear that or can even relate to where I am or I was in my life can hear this and be like, oh, there's somebody else that was struggling with making a decision or was really, really afraid of making a decision because they didn't know what it was going to end up like. And, yeah, that's really the only reason I want to share this kind of stuff. Because it can be so hard. Superficial, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And, I don't even know. Basically. And it can be super lonely as well to try and go through life without relating to anybody or maybe without having kind of something to, I guess, yeah, just relate to and feel seen with. I know, I mean, we all have, you know, like our confidants and our people that we feel really close to and that we share things with, but at some point also, there is that time, at least for me, I'm kind of in a time where I want to be more introspective. And I would rather maybe listen to, like this, like a podcast or a video where I can feel like that, where I can like feel something, have it be kind of a mirror for myself to see what I resonate with and why I resonate with it. And something along those lines instead of feeling perhaps like I'm venting or just constantly putting my baggage, so to speak, onto other people. But anyways, I'll just close this out because I think I've said what I felt and what I felt like needed to be said and come out in terms of what really resonated with me from that writing. And to end it, again, I just want to say be brave and just live a life that is worth living to you and a life of freedom. And whatever that freedom looks like to you, you know, that is not going to be what freedom looks like for the next person or for another person or for your partner or for your parents. We all have our own idea of what happiness and freedom really looks like for us. So listen to yourself and really just follow your heart. That sounds really corny, but follow, you know, your intuition, trust your intuition and do what's right and take the time to sit down with yourself and analyze why you're making the decisions and doing the things that you do and see if they're coming from a place of alignment with, you know, your idea of happiness and freedom. Or even out of necessity, right? Sometimes our jobs don't really align with what we want to be really doing. But, you know, are you taking the time? Like this podcast, I have to go to work in like an hour and a half. Work is not my favorite, but it's something that I need to do in order to, you know, pay my part of the bills. But I'm taking this time, this half hour, this 45 minutes, whatever, to do something that I really, really wanted to do and I'm really passionate about. And it makes me feel like I'm free and I have the freedom to choose to do this. And I'm very grateful for the ability to have the time and freedom to do this little podcast. So, yeah. Take the time to just look at yourself and figure out what being free and being happy means to you. And don't be afraid of taking the leap and making decisions that might scare you because you don't know what's going to happen. But just do them anyways. And I'll see you on the other side of that, I'm sure. So, yeah. Thank you again for tuning in to the second real episode of Anecdotes with Alex. And I'll see you next week, probably next Monday, for another episode of who knows what. Whatever intrigues me. Or maybe it'll be a rambling session about how I drill wet. You never know. You never know. Okay, bye. Bye bye!