something is horrifying about how small the army is. It’s spooky how many crossover episodes my Army career has had – the people in my life all just weirdly seem to find ways to each other. my West Point people have crossed paths with my high school people and FSU people, and my FSU people have stumbled upon my high school and West Point people like some weird interwoven highway system. I’ve been around to see all three of my lives mix like the weird middle school cafeteria concoctions people would make & I think it’s a privilege to know so many people in my chosen profession. I am also incredibly humbled to know that each stage of my life has made friendships that have lasted the past few years and will continue to grow alongside me.
weirdly enough, one day i opened my FSU rotc class' Snapchat group chat, "receive the report", to see a picture of a brown-haired man in OCPs, from my friend Ryan, with the caption @TAINAPSTEFFANY (my snapchat username). I was incredibly confused about why Ryan sent me a picture of this random guy into our group chat, and why he @ed me. It took him hours to text me back, but when he did, he said “I met that guy today and he said that he dated you.” my brain couldn’t even comprehend how my friend from Florida State met my high school ex-boyfriend on a random Saturday afternoon at camp Blanding, especially when my high school ex-boyfriend's university is on the opposite end of the state than FSU. I went back to the picture Ryan sent me and zoomed in on the man's face, and I quickly realized that “Yeah that is my ex-boyfriend."
I searched for the pieces of my ex-boyfriend that I could remember. It was sad that I didn’t immediately recognize him, and the more I think about it, the more shocking it is that I couldn’t even recognize the face of the boy i fell in love with when I was 14; the man in the photo was the same boy i cried over, the same boy i experienced my teenage years with, and the same boy who taught me how to be a girlfriend. he taught me what I wanted in a relationship, and how to grow up and apart from someone; the 20-year-old man in the picture was the 16-year-old boy I imagined I’d spend the rest of my life with (corny as hell to think about five years later, but if you didn’t think you were going to marry your high school boyfriend or girlfriend, you’re lame).
nothing blew my mind more than my best friend ascher being in the same platoon my ex-boyfriend. I called ascher to tell him how crazy and small the army is, i told him the story about the picture, and he asked me what my ex boyfriend's name was. I told him his name & tell me why ascher goes, "oh, he’s cool."... like what do you mean he’s cool?!!! what are the odds that out of the hundreds of rotc cadets, hundreds of rotc programs in 6th brigade, and the trillions of odds that could've ended ascher and my ex in a platoon together on that given weekend, it happened?! none right? well...ascher ended up telling me that they were in the same platoon and I couldn’t even write into words how crazy all of that was to me; ascher was not too amused with my Little Freak session but he never really is.
i think it's insane that i live in a world where my teenage years meet my adulthood, and i think it's even crazier that i find myself running into reminders of my teenage years every day...all because i joined the army right out of high school. people always joke about how small the army is and how intertwined it is, but i never really thought the day would come when my best friend would meet one of the biggest influences of my life. i find this experience that have been incredibly humbling and gratifying. i think it was fulfilling to know that 1) the army is in good hands with the people i love and once used to love & 2) that my ex-boyfriend was doing well for himself.
my ex-boyfriend and i are not in each other's lives in the slightest--there's just no room for baggage we kept for each other and no real purpose in a friendship (that was really sad to admit). but, despite our absence from each others' lives, it's refreshing to have reminders of him..to know that he's alive & well. our lives went in completely different directions after we broke up and graduated high school, & that's what really blows my mind about all of this. there shouldn't be any tether to each other, but we picked a career that only 1% of Americans choose to go into (i guess it isn't all that crazy that we had this experience, based on those statistics).
so, maybe him and i didn't run into each other at some coffee shop ten years down the line, or cross paths at an airport like in the movies, but he ran into the people that mean the most to me at field training exercise, wearing camo and rucksacks. my ex-boyfriend had the privilege to meet one of the greatest friends i've ever had and, through him, saw the best parts of me that i have to offer and grew into. i ended up texting my ex-boyfriend after a very long time of silence to talk about this weird overlap, and we talked briefly about how life had been...it's nice to know that we still want the best for each other. love will always come back to you, in different forms, different people, different hobbies, and different touches, but in every way, love will always come back to you...lucky for me, the love that i once lost at 18, from a brown-haired boy, turned into a career that led me to all the people i was meant to meet in this life.
i am very lucky to have had these different versions of my loves meet each other on a random weekend in March. i hope they meet again one day and tell stories about the people we once used to be and the people we are now. at this point, i'm convinced that the whole point of life is to introduce all the past versions of yourself to a future where their worries no longer exist (it's a pleasure & honor to do so).
with all my love,
♡steff
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