Reliving the "Old Days"

This summer, for the first time in my life, I returned to Fort Knox, Kentucky. Before this, the last time I stepped onto that base was at just seven years old, but now I was fifteen. Despite living in that small world for only two years of my life, the memories of coming back were almost overwhelming.

I believe that when you grow up moving around a lot, it becomes easy to divide your life into chapters rather than just a constant flow of memories. I almost remember my childhood as different blocks, with no connections between who I was at one spot or another. The seven-year-old I was in Kentucky is a completely different person with a completely different life than the seven-year-old in Germany. While the "different life" aspect of that may not be so wrong, it's hard for me to sometimes realize that I am the same person who has lived all of these different experiences in all of these different places, a thought only accentuated by the fact that before this, I hadn't ever returned to any of the places I used to call home, now having each cycled through housing their fair share of families themselves. Whenever we moved to a new place, that was it. Everything was done, and you left it behind you as you prepared for the future and the chaos that was about to come with moving across states, countries, continents. That's why, for me, returning to a place I had left so abruptly felt so monumental.

My family has lived away from military life for a little while now, so going back onto base in itself created some flashbacks-- it was so odd for something that was once almost a daily ritual to become something that I hadn't done in a few years. Driving around and seeing my elementary school, our house, the neighborhood playground, and even our frequented gas-station Pizza Hut decluttered the memories that had lived in my brain as messy fragments of the full picture I once had.

Getting to reminisce on life at Fort Knox made me realize two big things. Firstly, it made me appreciate how much life I'd lived at only fifteen years old, and how much I've had to go through to get to where I am today; how much I'd been through since living on that base in rural Kentucky. Then, it made me realize how the qualities of military life never truly leave you. Although it sounds sappy, it made me genuinely happy to realize that when I stepped onto that base, how much the military felt like returning home to the things I know. Not even the place itself, but the people, the lingo, and the shared experiences (both good and bad).

As I grow up and pursue college and a career, I already know that joining the military isn't the path for me. But even as I work toward my own life, I'll forever be thankful to have a "place" I can proudly call mine.