Today comes as a huge mixed bag of emotions. There are some parts today that I’m really annoyed with. There are also some parts that I wish I could have more of.
I’m on my Reservist at this time. That’s where all the Singaporean males are called back to the National Service, our Army. We serve as soldiers, and do everything as one would normally do in the army. It’ll usually take a period of a week or two, and we would not be able to do our normal work. We wouldn’t be on leave, but we would be paid our regular salaries by the Army instead, for that period of time.
The frustrations usually come from a range of things. One of the key frustrations is how seldom we get to work together, and just during this time for a week or two, we have to jump in and make everything work like clockwork. It would work if everyone knew exactly what they need to do, but most of the time, we take a day or two to figure it out, another day or two to actually do something that we think would work, and by the time we’ve kinda gotten it down, it’s the end of our time together, and we see each other again the next year, only to go through the same cycle over and over again.
But at the same time, some of the joys is having go through hardship together, because of situations that we go through. Sometimes it’s because of the experiences that we have, and we can be a part of the team. We get to meet people, and have an interesting time living life together in that few weeks.
The mixed feelings is because I’ll be on my way out of this time of service soon. It’s not easy to leave because I’ll need to say bye, or more specifically I won’t have that time together with everyone else to say bye to them. I’ll be able to see them during their parades, but otherwise, it’ll be difficult. I’m not unhappy about it, it’s just hard to have a cycle of things come to an end. It also means that I don’t have to do the work that I’ve become used to doing. Some of my identity has formed over this time period, doing this every year. It’s a lot of work that I had put in during these times, and it’s a lot of my identity as I grew up through the years. It feels weird that something I don’t look forward to every year is taken away, because now I have nothing that I don’t look forward to.
I think I’ll work out more of my feelings on this in the weeks to come, but right now, I’m just dealing with my sadness of departure. I’ll work out how to let go over time.