When I was 8 I woke up one morning. As far as I knew, it was just another school day. I was matting down my crazy bed head, stretching awake and wondering what I was going to eat for breakfast. My mom was in the bathroom curling her hair, and the news was playing in the background just like it did every morning.
On my morning walk to the bathroom I saw the horrifying scene of smoke streaming from the World Trade Center. Of course, my day went on as usual. As an eight year old it's hard to understand how something like that in New York City (Basically light years away from me) could affect me at all. I went to school that day and things were strange. We spent almost the entire day reflecting on our patriotism. We heard announcements about what had happened and all the adults scrambled trying to figure out how to explain this tragedy to children.
Today, in this age of information, everyone knows a little bit about a lot of things. It's an incredible thing that is causing a lot of problems. While love spreads like wildfire and photos showing patriotism and kindness circulate all over the country in minutes the same things happen with hate. More than half of the things I see on Facebook and Twitter are people arguing about who is more right. We're divided in everything that matters and everything that doesn't.
I constantly see people spreading words of hate. Calling each other morons and liars. There's hypocrisy and bigotry. Prejudice and discrimination. Constant arguing about police brutality, Planned Parenthood, marriage licenses, amnesty, and who is dumber or more hypocritical.
I think about what happened 14 years ago and how it happened because of hate. Because people refuse to understand each other and continue to be intolerant of each other.
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I joined the Army because I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself. I wanted to put my opinions aside and just do what I felt was right. I haven't been any where and I haven't done anything, but I stand next to people who have and one day, I may have to.
And for their sake, I just wish everyone could learn to get along.
Nearly every day I scroll through my Facebook Newsfeed. I check out what my family is sharing, I might click on a few profiles of people from high school, and I'll laugh at a few memes. Pretty often I click on blog posts from my favorites, and I shamefully read articles that are telling me what to do and what to think about everything.
Whenever I see a tag line like "5 signs you've met your husband" or "10 reasons to dump him" I just wonder what makes you so qualified to tell everyone about their own love life? I'm pretty sure the answer here is this: They're not qualified at all.
A few days ago, a relationship I thought would be my last ended. And I think it may have ended forever. I can't really be sure, but I think it's for real this time. That relationship checked every box.
i.e.-- his happiness = my happinessI wanted to share everything with him. All I ever wanted was to be around him...and the list goes on and on.
But you know...Real Life is not about checking boxes. It's about people and their experiences. It's about different perspectives being combined. It's about the lives of two people or two families colliding. Real Life consists of constant changes. Turbulence. Decisions. Differences. Hopes & Dreams. Jobs. Goals. Money. Love...
In short...how do you know you met the one?
You don't know. You might say you know. You might be making yourself rice-a-roni for breakfast and talking to your mom and you're telling her..."mom I'm going to marry him." But you know, it doesn't matter. He might check every box. He could be everything you ever wanted and you might just know.
