Rewind to a year ago, when I met a boy. As similar to any teenage story as that sounds, mine is quite the opposite of those love tales. Sure, we were inseparable, but those days have long passed. Life is full of twists and turns in the plot; no one can foresee the future, and soon I am going to meet another boy. The difference, though, is that this boy will be my son.
For years I had yearned to join the United States Marine Corps as a military police officer. My aspiration to become a law enforcement officer within the military was driven by speaking with and shadowing current officers. I have several family members who are either chief of police or sheriffs, and being able to discuss their experiences with them only assured me of my desire to work in the criminal justice field. I craved to be a part of the Marine family because the code by which they live their lives, during and after their service, is astonishing. It was everything I had ever sought, to uphold those values and beliefs, to represent my country. Every day my mind would tick down another twenty-four hours closer to my seventeenth birthday, the day that dream could finally become tangible. Until then I had to fill my time, which meant exercise, school work, and taking care of my Autistic brother Brady. I was constantly active whether it be at the gym, nighttime strolls with my mother or dogs, or even running when I woke up early or had trouble sleeping. At this point, I was content with my life, making the most of every situation, hardly being able to wait until I could enlist in the Marines. Little did I know that one humungous change loomed just ahead.
When I first discovered I was pregnant, I was absolutely terrified. I locked myself in the bathroom and just wept; all I could picture was the Marines, my family’s trust, everything circling down the drain. There are no other words to express what was going through my head. Finally the tears subsided but the fear remained; I had yet to inform my mother. The waterworks came flooding again as she held me, telling me she would always love me and how this was “not the end of the world, just the change of the world”. That night was sleepless, spent instead obsessing over every little detail of my new future, determining how to make it the best I humanly could in order to support this little surprise life had bestowed upon me. I not only had to agonize over my future, but his now also.
Striving to give my son the world, as any mother naturally should aspire to, I plan to earn a bachelor’s degree in Psychology, and use it not only to benefit myself but others as well. I hope to pursue a career in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a passion I have always held as I intended to be a military police officer. Successfully completing that set of tasks, I will have the ability to make the world and my community a safer area while bettering myself for Easton, “my change of the world”, whom I cannot wait to finally meet this January.