Here I sit. Legs and feet covered in bruises. I'm single so they're not from anyone. No, I didn't give them to myself, either. They're from work. Yes, work.
Where I work is not the safest place in the world. I mean there's tons of machines with rapidly moving, and some sharp parts. But it pays the bills.
I sit and contemplate where I went wrong. Why I allowed myself to get too attached to him. He was my world. Then, without warning, he left.
When he left it was like a major part of me died. I cried for days over him. He was my everything. I couldn't bare the idea of living in this world without him.
My anxiety flared up really bad. I had multiple anxiety attacks. At work was where I had my worst one. No one helped me through any of them. Especially that one. All I was told was, "You need to pull yourself together or you'll get fired!"
At that point, I was seriously contemplating suicide. I felt like no one loved me. My anxiety kept telling me that I was a worthless piece of shit that didn't deserve love because I couldn't even keep one man happy. How was I supposed to keep anyone else happy?
There were times when I would sit in the dark and stare into nothingness. I had to do something. Anything to keep my mind off of my situation. So I looked into enlisting in the military.
I tried going for the Air Force but they never contacted me back. So I got some information from some people from the National Guard. I called the recruiter of one of my brother's buddies. He got in touch with a local recruiter, who contacted me the next day.
We met only two days later and the enlistment process began. We went over the paperwork over the course of about a week or two. After all of that, we had to go to get a paper from the orthodontist that I had been trying to get for about a month.
Once we got it, I was able to go to the MEPS center the following Monday and take the ASVAB. I passed that with flying colors. Then we went to medical. I sat in medical for about 7 hours. Over the course of those hours, I had a full physical that included and eye exam and hearing test. They also did a blood test on me.
Come 18:00 that day, I was sworn in as a Private in the North Carolina National Guard. My ship date was was determined while I was there finishing up the paperwork with the National Guard representatives that worked there.
I have a bright future ahead of me with the National Guard. But still, I felt empty. I was happy with the direction it was going but what good was that if I didn't have anyone to share my happiness with?
That's when I signed up for online dating and everything changed.
