everything has changed

Do I even want to be with this boy for the rest of my life? Is it worth giving up something that I may or may not want to do? Will I regret it later?

What won't I regret?

I'm with adults everyday. (Well, adults that are older than me, anyways.) I hear about their past. I hear about their present and former relationships. I hear their regrets. And it hits me -- I'm 21. I haven't finished college. I'm still a kid. I still have that freedom of no house, no spouse, no kids. And I want to travel. I want to better myself. And I don't want to grow up and look back on my life regretting one thing or another. On the other hand, I'm not naive. I know that I'll have my own set of choices, my own regrets.

This isn't just a fork in the road. I don't just have two clear-cut choices. Each choice will lead to another set of choices. And each of those to another. Do I stay in the band or reclassify to yet another skill? Do I finish this enlistment and never look back? Do I stay enlisted or do I become an officer? Active Army? Air Force? Or do I stick to the civilian side of things -- where I don't know what I'll do when I grow up, what state or even what country I'll end up in. There are no wrong decisions. But there are no right decisions either. A decision is a decision, as simple as that. Even if the aftereffects aren't so simple.

Knowing that there are no right or wrong decisions makes it difficult to choose. The only thing that I do know is that each decision brings new people into my life and casts others out. For some reason it seems that every decision I'm making now is casting more and more people out. My friends don't return my calls. My former classmates and professors don't bother to email. My own boyfriend doesn't want to continue the relationship if I continue to be a soldier. It's almost as if I had died. Or moved and left everything behind. And I'm only a few states away. A phone call, an email away. Not on the other side of the world. Nothing important has changed, other than my duty status.

And yet, everything has changed.