Soul searching...

Another day has passed and I've almost made it through. I'm so close to the end of the semester I can almost taste it! I'm surrounded by priviliged, millennial children that have no idea how easy they have it. No, I do not have any student loans like some of these kids, but I think the pledge of my life in the army for over 20 years is a pretty even exchange. If I didn't have the Post 9/11 GI Bill or Vocational Rehabilitation to pay for school, I doubt I would have ever gone back. I'm sure I have marketable skills and I know I have a variety of experience, but nothing like when you have that piece of paper in hand that says you've been formally trained by a top-notch school. I look at my culinary degree often,  staring at the details, wondering if I'll see anything new about it each time. I'm very careful with it as though it can be taken away at any moment; Same with my retirement orders. It's kind of funny, I have all of my medals and awards from over the years in a big box, crammed in my storage unit and before that the box was buried in a closet in a spare bedroom. I've never really looked at them much. I didn't really feel worthy when I received each one and that's not why I served anyway. I served because I felt like I belonged around the people I served with. It was my comfort zone. Now I'm outside that comfort zone. Effective, 25 Feb 2016, I became a "gray area retiree" in the retired reserve. I miss my people so much sometimes it hurts. I have the memories of multiple deployments where we spent every waking minute together, laughing, arguing, eating, shitting and sometimes crying together. Then, I have the memories of working at the infamous flight facility at MMT. I think I experienced almost every emotion there is working there. Who would've thought that aircraft maintenance would be so emotional? It is!