So this is it.the 365 days are over. there's a lot of talk about the army in Greece, and that's because everybody has to join in the end. But one conclusion i have reached, from my early days in that organisation is that it's all a very personal burden. Everything you've heard from your friends will not apply to your experience, because you are a different personality. Therefore there's different things that annoy you, disturb you, make you happy or different things you can or cannot stand.
for me the year has been anything but easy. The paradox is that i hardly ever went through genuinely difficult situations. i got a good transfer to the border (not on the borderline but in a city) and a good second transfer back to my hometown 5 months later. i met with good people. i made a few new friends. i discussed anything from sports to philosophy. i have a few good memories recorded and some photos to remind me of them.
but that was not the point. what brought me down was the absense from real life. the fact that i lost contact with a lot of my friends, who kept on with their lives as they should. i just wasn't there for them and most of them were not there for me as well, as they could not understand. i could not explain what i am going through.
what also brought me down a few times was the whole environment as i am against the idea of the army. what depressed me was the lack of initiative, the futility of the work i did, the fact that i always had a deadline of coming back in camp when i was out, i couldn't work, earn a living, create and be free. and on top of that, the entire world outside camp was evolving and moving on, so the idea of having to catch up when i am through with this all, has almost become an obsession.
i also learnt a few things from this year. i learned new perspectives from a few people i met, i learnt to hang around with people i would never hang around in my real life but whom i suddenly had my entire life common with, i learnt i had new limits of patience, and i learnt that when you are deprived of important things in life, then even meaningless things acquire importance. a person has got to survive and that's why the human brain constantly invents new things to focus on.
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end, so i am now ready to move on, keeping the good stuff and throwing away the bad stuff. I just wanna thank my family (Aris, Rena, Georgia, Peter, George), and friends like Panos and others in GR and all friends abroad (who are quite a few to mention and for sure i would miss a few) for the support, which helped me keep my sanity and touch with the real world, however trivial it might have seemed to you guys, like an sms or a phonecall. and I feel honoured (though i kinda don’t believe in luck) to have come accross people like Leonidas, Kostas M., Nick K., Nick M., Nick M. #2, John T. John G., John K., Michael M., Alex A., George P, Kostas P., Christos P., Dimitris Ch., George Ch., Makis T. and others. Thank you guys.
it's a weird feeling when you cross the gate, going out into the world again. it's what you have been expecting for an entire year. and not being able to define exactly where to start rebuilding your life from brings a lot of awkwardness to the moment. but that's the way it is. you can see it as having to climb another mountain, as a challenge or an opportunity. it's a matter of attitude, in life we choose the way we live. i can keep whining forever or i can do something about it. and i choose to do the second.
it's a weird feeling when you cross the gate, going out into the world again. but one thing i know for sure is that i'm not gonna look back.
