Who I used to be

I used to be a Republican. Not the crazy ass, racist, closed minded, super religious zealots that we see today, but yes, a Republican. I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter growing up. I was surrounded by them. My aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and everyone they associated with were all republicans. My parents always said they were democrats, but when you saw the way they raised us and the way they talked, they were more center/center right. They only talked about how everyone shouldn’t have guns. I grew up idolizing an uncle of mine that served in the Marines. I wanted to be like him. So that’s what I did. I listened to his every word and took it as gospel. I didn’t do any of my own thinking or even tried to contradict him on anything. I was religious, anti gay, pro second amendment, pro life, and thought that colleges were just trying to indoctrinate everyone into being a left wing loser. I enlisted in the marines when I turned 18 and thought I knew my life trajectory for the next 20 years. I couldn’t have been more wrong…

I wasn’t in the marines for more than a year before I knew I didn’t belong. I was always told that the marines didn’t care about color or religion when you’re in. A marine is just that, and nothing else mattered. I grew up in the suburbs. A graduating class of 800 with virtually zero diversity. A bunch of yuppy white kids and the teachers were the same. With that, I didn’t see any racism outside of books, movies and tv. That changed really quickly in the marines. Muslims, even though they were marines were ostracized at best, and were sometimes seen as the enemy still. Hispanic marines were seen as just trying to get citizenship, and not really part of the team. The worst I saw was a hillbilly that grabbed a rope, tied it into a noose and drove around looking for the guy that stole someone else’s car, saying how he couldn’t wait to string up that “N-word” thief. He also proudly brought in paperwork showing how his family used to own slaves and he missed out on owning his own. I will go into more details about me being an ex marine in another post, but this was the beginning of my eyes opening up.

I got out of the Marines after doing my four years, and I wish I could say that the experience really changed who I was, but I wasn’t there yet. At 22 I was almost the same person still. I clung to the right wing ideals still. I wasn’t religious anymore, and I wasn’t super keen on the marines anymore, but everything else was still the same. I floated through the next 6 years of my life. Working crappy jobs, getting divorced, getting drunk, and just being angry at the world for being fucked up, but never taking any accountability for myself and where I was in life. At 28 I lost another crappy job and finally decided to go to school. Not for a degree, but a trade. Luckily for me, the school I went to required I take extra courses in order to get my certificate. I took an English class and Arabic. English was required, but Arabic was so I could learn the language and try to get a job working as a contractor overseas. This is where I started changing. In the mechanics classes, I was surrounded by more of The people I was used to. In my English and Arabic classes, I was around people very different from me. People from different cultures, different countries, different religions, etc. I won’t lie. It scared me a bit. Not in a fear for safety or anything, but because it was my first chance to be around people that made me question who I was and what I believed. Muslims weren’t the scary people we were fighting overseas. My professor was a very kind, caring, thoughtful and brilliant person, who just happened to be from Iraq. She was amazing and I got to spend 2 years learning the language from her.

That one class pushed me to want to continue my education. I got my associates degree, traveled to a few different countries, met people from all over and started to see the world differently. I got accepted and transferred to American university to get my bachelors in international studies. I still had pieces of the old me, which led to some pretty severe mental health issues (more in that later too) before I finally pushed the old me away for good. It took being around other veterans also doing what they could to better themselves to understand that letting go of who I used to be was the only way for me get past it all. Going through all of this when the 2016 election was going on made the transition a bit easier too. We all saw what trump was and what he was doing to our country, and not supporting him was the easiest thing.

That’s enough for today. While looking back and talking about who I used to be is therapeutic, it still takes a lot out of me. It’s both depressing to see who I used to be, and a proud moment for me to see how far I’ve come.