Forced Spontaneity

[Disclaimer: I am not intentionally "vague-blogging" in this post.  I'll be letting you all know about the changes I'm referring to within the next couple of days.]

Recently I have found myself wishing I could go back to a different time in my life when things were stable, unchanging, and utterly predictable.  Like when I was stationed in Monterey.  I was in one place for three years and every day was pretty much the same.  The monotony drove me crazy.  I woke up at 5, formation at 7, work until 4, PT until 5, dinner, and in bed by 9.  Every day.  Over and over.  For 3 years.  The only difference is that for the first year "work" meant class, and for the second two years, "work" was work. 

And now, a year and a half later, I want it all back.  I want to go back and live in that same ugly little room, with a steady rotation of increasingly psychotic roommates that threatened to kill me or didn't bathe.  But when almost nothing changes, you can be sure of what comes next.  You can make plans and keep them.  You can start projects and finish them.  You eat at the same time every day because the chow hall is only open at certain times.  (And because it was an Army chow hall, you would most likely be eating the same thing every day.)

I'm clearly glossing over the unhappy parts to my time in Monterey, and there were definitely some unhappy times:  a 9pm curfew at age 22 (not that I had anywhere to go, but if I DID...); not living with K; being told more than once by my superiors that I was not only failing myself, but I was failing my country because of some medical issues that were not my fault.  Yes, tech school can be rough, but it's the only time in the military where your life is really stable.  You know you aren't going anywhere until it's over and what each day will be like.  I just want that stability back. 

There are a lot of changes coming our way in the next year, and I feel like they are forcing me to be spontaneous.  I'm all for spontaneity, and going with the flow, but not when it's forced.  I want to CHOOSE to be spontaneous.  Change makes us grasp for the familiar and cling to it, which is probably why I find myself wishing to be back in tech school.  And no person in their right mind that has done it would actually wish for this because it's one step up from boot camp, which is also not fun. 

I need to keep being angry about these changes for a few more days while they sink in, but if the crappy part of tech school taught me anything, it's that I can grab these changes by the cajones and show them whose boss!