Additionally this is a good time to mention that I have been on my own in one way or another since the age of 18. In order to receive federal financial aid within the United States you need to show your parent's tax information except if one of the following applies to you:
- You have a family member or child as a dependent
- You are married
- You are under the age of 24 and both of your parents are deceased
- You were a ward of your state until you were 18 years of age
- You are 24 years of age or older
- You are a member of the United States Armed Forces
- You were a foster child after the age of 13
- You are an emancipated child as determined by a court judge
- You are homeless or at risk of homelessness as determined by the director of a HUD approved homeless shelter, transitional program, or high school liaison.
None of those apply to me and when I was homeless I did not gather any documentation describing my status. So essentially, if I want to go to school before the age of 24 I have to pay for it out of my own pocket.
Joining the Marines was a great option for me because it would consider me a "member of the United States Armed Forces" and it also came with much of my schooling being paid for. My intentions were to join either an intelligence or communications MOS with a development plan to become an Officer. After four years of active service, I planned on coming back and immediately joining the Police Academy to which I would have been well prepared for with plenty of training already accomplished and good solid experience.
I was attending weekly USMC Poole sessions and overall preparing myself to head off to bootcamp sometime in June or July, until something was brought to my attention that devastated me.
When I saw that haunting paragraph it felt like my world had been destroyed. The despair was so crushing I could not even shed a tear. My life felt like it had no way of getting better and that I would forever be stuck in a static position filled with the stench of broken relationships, unsatisfying work conditions, goals forever postponed and a feeling of entrapment in my own complacent persona. Unmovable. Stuck. Trapped. Static.
The remorseful conversation I had with my Staff Sargent confirmed that eczema is a strong disqualification because it is considered an open wound and causes complications with the small pox vaccine given to every member of the Armed Forces.
With this incredibly rich life option being taken out of my grasp, my mind turned into a defeatist cycle of darkness and despair. I will always remember April 2011 as a dizzy and turbulant circle with California's retarded sunshine heating up my room and my face as I did my routine of biking 10 miles daily to work. But this counterproductive attitude did not last long, and around the time of this blog post entry I started reverting back to my original plan of moving to Portland.
Now I'm living in a state of accomplished desire and I am working simultaneously on getting even more work done. There will always be an unsatisfied yearning to go through bootcamp and receive that highly valuable experience, but there is something an ex-girlfriend once told me that excites me and makes me feel there is still a chance for personal redemption though will:
Jonathan: "I'm impressed by the training soldiers go through, with drill instructors yelling at them all the time and pushing their limits."
R: "Well it's more impressive if those soldiers were able to push their limits without drill instructors. It's more difficult this way too."
And that's my plan.
