IDLE NO MORE
For the past month I’ve been battling feelings of surrender, surrender the battle to become what I’ve worked so hard for the past year to become. I haven’t really been inspired to do anything other than sit in front of the television and eat. I push myself to work out, to wake up early, to go running, and be active; doing these things with no motivation is really hard, but I still do them. I came back home to try and make things easier for me, in New York I had no job and no apartment, since I thought the process with the Marines was going fine I gave my apartment keys in, to only find out there was something incredibly wrong with the process, there wasn’t a process! Coming home with the re-assurance that things were going to be easier and faster for me here and knowing I will have a guaranteed place to live with some privacy, instead of crashing on family members couches like I was doing in NYC, I flew here with the hopes that things were going to speed up, boy was I wrong!
The past month has been hard, confusing, exhausting and down right frustrating. Once I found out there was a complete Military entry delay for not just the Marines, and I would be leaving in January instead of October how I was promised before I landed here, I got frustrated, annoyed, sad and confused. I even thought if this is what I’m meant to be doing with my life, if I should succumb to what people were telling to, to just get a job, live and take care of my father because he needed me to be here. I was so confused about it all. I began to look for work online, you know, to at least have a few dollars coming in, and I got one that’s a really sweet deal, it’s writing articles for this company that helps other companies build business, I get paid for the articles I write and I like it, since I can do it from home or wherever I have internet access and my laptop, the money began to flow.
My spirits began to change and I realized that I was starting to get back to the person I was before, this is just a bump in the road and it is completely reasonable if I get frustrated, the non reasonable part is to stay that way for too long, I allowed myself to feel it out, but after a few weeks I had to take action and control of myself again. I was still thinking of what was right for me and if I should stay home to take care of Dad, then one day while we were watching Lifetime’s Army Wives an episode where this young girl is thinking about enlisting in the Army but is pressured by her family to stay and “do the right thing” my Dad said “yeah, but what about her, what is the right thing for her life?!” that’s when I knew that I should continue my path and he wouldn’t hate me for it, he wouldn’t resent me for following my dreams, he’ll encourage me actually to live the life I’ve been working and fighting so hard to get. It’s the jealous ones that resent, hate and instigate negativity and I won’t allow myself to be put down, not any more! I am idle no more!
Text: LaShawn Pagan
