As most of you know, I have just returned home! I cannot believe that it was over a year ago when I started this deployment process. But I am excited to be returning to my new life and my family and friends. There will be many things to do when I return, but I am keeping in the back of my mind that it will all be worth it and it shouldn’t be too time-consuming to get it accomplished. I expect nearly all of my friends and family to recognize a difference in me when I return, nothing too drastic, but enough to know that I have made some changes in my life.
Over the last year, my life has been one wild chain of events. Many things in my life have changed over the past year. I have had some time to reflect on my life and some situations that have brought me where I am today. I have also seized the opportunity to regain my focus on my life and gained a fresh prospective on how I intend to live my life. I have established what I believe are the essential goals to make the most of my life when I return. I believe that I have made the vital steps to make the required changes needed in order to obtain those goals.
These changes will be crucial to me achieving these goals in the time that I have set forth. I will be focused and steadfast when it comes to the goals that I have set for myself. Granted there will be a period of adjustment when I return home, but my plan is to make this transformation during the first month that I am home.
During this first month, I anticipate on having my much needed excitement. My objective is to rid all cravings of going out every night. Please don’t misunderstand my intentions. I am not completely ending my nights of going out. But I must remain focused on my goals. I am going to be limiting myself to one weekend a month of clubbing. This directly coincides with my parenting time and my drill weekends and the fact that I am finally financially stable and I am determined to remain that way.
An additional way that I propose to stay financially stable will be to move closer to the armory and to my kiddo. I have found an apartment that will put me within a twenty minute commute to work, depending upon traffic, of course, and a twenty minute commute to my son. This along with the purchase of my new Jetta will have an enormous effect on my finances.
Other than my finances, my goals are family and career oriented. I have made the determination that I will continue to spend as much time with my son as I always have. Nothing has and never will change regarding that. But prior to my deployment, I was not career minded. I had been frustrated that my career was not fulfilling my desires. During this deployment I have gained some insight to what I need to do to self-enhance my career. Is the job that I am returning to the one that I want and yearn for? By no means is it what I would like, but it is what it is and I now have the aspiration to make the most of it. The deployment has opened my eyes to see what other supply sergeants have and have not achieved. I worked on a level that I could see how well fellow supply sergeants accomplished their mission and I must say that those that are on active duty, with many more years experience than I have, did not make a very good impression on me. I was actually amazed at how they tried to slide by with doing as little as possible. Seeing this reminded me of what I was doing before I deployed. This drove home a point that literally made me sick to think about. How many soldiers did I not take care of during my time as their supply sergeant? Did I take care of my commanders as well as I should have when it comes to the property that they have signed for? How many times did I just skate by when I should have and could have made a difference to another soldier and to my unit? Well enough is enough. I have given myself an ultimatum. I am determined to excel when others skim by. There are not a lot of ways to grade myself in that, but there is one way. In the army, there is an award that is given to the best supply rooms. It is my desire to have one of these awards within a year of my return. I’m afraid this might take some long days and evenings, but in the end, the reward will be sweet!
So as I close this chapter of my life, I must say that it was a real eye-opener. I have learned a lot about myself during the last year and intend on taking what I’ve learned and improving on some things that need it and sustaining on things that I feel that I do well. I know that turning this page allows me the opportunity to succeed or to fail, but I know that it’s a blank page. And the pages after it are blank. It is all up to me on how successful I will be. Given the goals that I have set for myself and the desire that I will be returning with, I do not see failure in my future. So let’s turn this page and watch this next chapter of my life unfold.