CHERRISH

Making new bank accounts, scrubbing social media, signing agreement forms, figuring out taxes and insurance companies, wow. About a monthish later, I'm gone! Diving into adulthood like whaaaat I guess handling all 48 forms by myself is a handful. Kinda wish I had my mom to help me with them, but I know it is expected to know these things by June 30th. Ugh, can't believe that date, once sounding so far away, sounds so close now. "Civilian life is so easy. You don't know how easy and simple you had it, until you leave it." I look at my life now, and Will wasn't exaggerating. The student lifestyle I currently struggle through, and the classic teenager days my friends spend as they see fit, maybe I am fit to go to the Naval Academy. All I had to do as a civilian...is just enjoy and do the "norm" to do everything for my own good. The measurement of a "good day" for an average civilian is if things went the way you wanted it to. Enjoyment, personal plans, leisure relationships. But a "good day" for a mid would be if you correctly followed orders from an officer--without getting yelled at too much. And all the discipline isn't even for my own good--it's inherently all for the good of others. I guess theres no use of me being jealous of my friends anymore. I just have to understand that whenever they nag at me to accept their offer to go play, they don't know and I shouldn't expect them to know what I'm going through. Definitely not a prideful stature. More of a bittersweet realization. Of course I'm going to cherish the last moments with friends and family. It's just like what my summer at Stanford taught me. (See, God never wastes anything!) Even though everyone else seems like their enjoying their life while I'm suffering and working my ass off, I can't weigh my joy and freedom in comparison to their joy and freedom because mine is on a different level. And with it, I have the ability to see that there is a time and place for everything. I don't need to go out with friends every day to be a "second semester senior" or to enjoy myself. I don't need to talk with friends every day. I don't need to "take a break from studying and just enjoy" because I see my goals and deadlines of which they cannot see. Thank you God for giving me the opportunity to prepare myself BEFORE i go off to usna. And thank you God for the opportunity to love and serve one another. Let me not forget that loving and serving is more important than getting things done. When opportunity strikes, let me ask that you lay your way no matter how it seems to me.