When I was a Child I Thought as a Child Date Wednesday, April 24, 2024 - 05:26 AM PST Topic Experiences "When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." I Cor. xiii. 11 Everyone has to grow up eventually, or at least most of us do. There are exceptions to this rule, but for the most part all of us grow up and become responsible adults. What it takes for all of us to reach this milestone in life depends on the specific person. I’m sure you could ask 1000 people what made them become an adult and you will get 1000 different answers. Well, today January 30th 2003 is a day I will remember for the rest of my life. I became an adult today. It was a real eye-opener. It felt somewhat like a cross between being hit by a Mack truck and that feeling you get in your stomach when the roller coaster hits the big drop. My entire world came crashing down, whirled around me a few times, then knocked me upside the head and out cold. When I woke up I was a different person. I’ve always been told how mature I was by my family, friends, and just about everyone that knew me. I’ve always been around those that were older than me, just never seemed to get along real well with those my age. I mean shit; I skipped 3 grades between elementary school and middle school making me the first to graduate in my family at the age of 15. (Actually the first in my family to finish high school at all.) I’ve been working since I was 12 and got my first full time job at 14. Graduated high school and started going to a local community college where I majored in English literature. A major school was out of the question because again I was around those older than me, started doing a lot of things I shouldn’t have and sorta blew off high school for the most part. Anyways, finished 2 semesters of college and couldn’t afford it any more being only 16 and working as an assistant manager at a clothing store, so I made the biggest choice of my life. I was going to join the military. I packed my bags and shortly after I turned 17 I was off for basic training. Today I was informed that I was being kicked out of the United States Air Force. After 3 years in I guess they finally decided that it was time. Luckily for me it will be an honorable discharge and I already have a very nice paying job lined up out in the civilian world. I’m getting out under “failure to adjust to a military lifestyle”. I guess it wasn’t good enough when I told them after my first 3 months in that this wasn’t for me and I needed to get out. After getting done with the paperwork in which my commander informed me of his decision I went into my First Sergeants office because he wanted to talk with me. For those of you that know nothing about the military the First Sergeant is for the most part the parent figure in the military. His job is to help you out when you have any problems, whether professionally or personally, and to smack your ass when you do something wrong. There I listened to this man tear into me for 30 mins telling me how worthless I was and how I would never amount to anything. How he had no idea how I was going to make it in the “real” world and that I was a drain on society. After this 30-minute ass chewing he then began to tell me how sorry he was that the Air Force had failed me. That maybe if he, and my supervisor, and those around me had taken a more personal role in my problems, had seen me cries for help that I wouldn’t be in the position that I was in now. Now I’ve never blamed any of my problems in my life on anyone. I’ve always taken care of myself cause that’s all I’ve ever had. If something was wrong I dealt with it… maybe not in the right way but I dealt with it. I may have thought I was an adult, actually I’ve thought that about myself for a large portion of my life. Kinda like the Tom Hanks movie “Big” except I was a man trapped in a kids body. Now when I look back on my life I can’t believe how wrong I was. I was playing pretend. Still that scared little boy inside a mans body... This article comes from Shmeng http://www.shmeng.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=474