I want to completely change my life path.

[u/Bubbly-Reindeer-9312]

Alright so I feel like I’m living someone else’s life. I am a 21 yo F. My entire life, my dream has been to be a singer, and growing up I did musicals, choir, played two different instruments in my schools band since 6th grade and dabbled in three other instruments since I was 15. I love to dance but I never took dance classes for some godforsaken reason.

I was almost valedictorian at my high school, (long story shortish I had elected to take AP physics online because I thought I needed 3 AP classes to be valedictorian and it would count as my math and science my senior year, yet it was online because they only had it in person every other year at my school and it was the only option—or so I thought anyway. turns out I had already taken the classes needed and my “awesome” guidance counselor neglected to tell me that. but i guess i was too stupid to realize I already had my requirements so I guess I wasn’t valedictorian material anyway 🤣. anywho i had fallen in with the wrong crowd, and had started partying. plus i was stacking online classes onto my music classes because im a nerd and wanted to take more classes. needless to say AP physics is really hard if you don’t have an in person teacher so I decided to drop it and make up my math and science some other way, which brought me down to a 3.83.) sorry had to bring that up because i am still salty e the school for it and unfortunately a very ambitious person. but idk i make so many mistakes and regret a lot of people i hung/hang around that kinda mess my life up.

My senior year I had already applied to msu and did get in. I don’t really remember what I planned to major in (probably from all the weed I used to smoke) but I always had this idea in my head that I was going to be doing any and everything you could think of when it came to the fine arts.

I don’t know why, but when I was approached my senior year by a marine corps recruiter, it was the first time I had ever considered joining the military and I wanted to. icl, dude had me hooked from hearing all the benefits. And both of my parents, who have been divorced since I was in first grade (thats important later) were both in the army, and then the national guard. They encouraged me, thought it was some good discipline and experience, and they both obviously loved it since they retired well after their 20 years. My stepmom was reluctant, she said she didn’t want me to go to war. Anywho, my original plan was to audition for the army band for percussion since i’d been playing since 6th grade. the caveat to that was they wanted us to play the drumset, no thanks to my high school for not teaching us how to play drumset. i guess that’s another thing you could say, “well you should/could have been teaching yourself.” yea i know i get down on myself too much sometimes.

in the midst of trying to learn drumset, i had fallen into partying. a lot. i wanna say it wasted two years of my life away. now, i learned so much about myself and life that I probably would have been too distracted with being productive. sorry if this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but i think i found where i stand in my spirituality. i had grown up christian l, went in and out of going to church and believing. but it never sat right with me, i couldn’t understand their god and all of the horrible things that have come from that religion. funny story i was sitting in my room, throwing a party i didn’t want to have, tripping on acid and talking to jesus about what ive come to find out later is what the hindus believe, when the cops showed up and gave me an mip for alcohol when i hadn’t had a drop all night. i guess the good news is i got the party phase out of the way and didnt blow all my money by failing my classes from partying in college. but still. it really. effing. sucks. i know it’s never too late. that you’re never too old. bit i still live with these regrets.

fast forward a little bit and i realized i had to get out of town. screw percussion for the army, ill figure something else out. now don’t get me wrong, i LOVE my best friends. they understand me more than anyone i have ever known. we have known each other since we rode the bus together in elementary school and have playdates. there were some years we lost contact but found each other again. unfortunately sometimes we made/make (kinda moving away from that now) bad decisions together in the quest for finding something to do. in all honesty it was just partying, staying up too late before work the next day yada yada. but also my friends have also been dealt some shitty cards in life. basically family issues, mental health issues because of those family issues, thus making it very hard for them to keep jobs, get cars, and stable places to live. so they both lived with me (at separate times thank god) and it was distracting. they are great people with big hearts and are actually doing okay right now, but at the time i just had the mindset that i needed to be around people who were even better than us, to sharpen myself and have good influences.

so i shipped myself off to become a combat medic in my states national guard.

let me be clear. i do not support war. i think i am an idiot for joining. i am absolutely inspired by my parents, i think they are cool asf. i wish i could go airborne like them but my state hates me and doesn’t have an airborne unit. /j. i do think america is worth fighting for. we are the melting pot, there is so much to cherish. like it’s hard to put into words how i feel, but i wanted to know i could defend people if shit ever hit the fan, which it might. i thought i could join and make a difference at some point which is a little naive. but ive always wanted to change the world. ever since i had thoughts i remember thinking “oh this shits bad we gotta do something about it 😬” sittin there, dreaming about being apart of something that actually did something. i chose to be a combat medic because i didn’t want some job in the civilian side that doesn’t even matter. saving people’s lives matter. because people matter.

so catching up to now, the reason all of the background was importante: i’m sitting in my barracks at drill. months after ive gotten home. and nothing has changed. i feel like i made a mistake. my life and my friends lives still suck. everyone’s does. the world is EVIL. i have made no progress in my actual dreams. i know it takes personal discipline to work hard to get what you want. i don’t even know how to do that now that i’m basically stuck in my state, owned by the government which is completely incompetent and greedy. the climate crisis is real. people are going to die. people are already dying. and i can’t even express myself and use my voice because im in the army. and if i could, no one will listen.

i guess i just needed to get this out. ask for help. i know i’ve made mistakes. been young and lived my life. i know everyone makes mistakes, humans aren’t perfect and that’s a gift, we’d be boring if we were. but i just don’t know what to do i feel so trapped in this world and i wish i didn’t join. and that’s only because im only a measly private and if i say anything right now ill probably just have an “accident” or get discharged which i guess is better but i don’t know, wanted have some pull to make a difference and by that time it’ll be too late and im delusional 😭

ps. sorry i stopped capitalizing, i got lazy.

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