A decade under the influence, what 2000-2009 meant to me.

This decade saw me grow up. All of my defining life experiences happened these ten years. I came into this decade as a precocious 11 year old who thought he was gonna be a professional football player/Astronaut when he grew up. in the Year 2000 I entered Woodlands Middle School and met the other half of this writing tandem. I sat through the events that unfolded on September 11, 2001 in my seventh grade english class with my best friend and then girlfriend. I had my first kiss. I had my first breakup. And met friends who I maintain to this day. This was all before High School. I'll never forget August 20th 2003, my first day at Lake Worth Community High School. I was an AFJROTC cadet along with one of my best friends who would go on to be my first college roommate. My freshman year of high school was spent playing football and chasing girls, something that would not deviate too much for the next four. My sophomore Year I had my first serious girlfriend. They say you always remember your first, well, somehow I'm still good friends with my first, despite myself. Around this time I realized I saw the world differently than most, I seldom took anything seriously and used my sense of humor as a coping mechanism to deal with the soul crushing effects of being a teenager. By self medicating with drugs and alcohol I learned who I was going to be when I grew up. I realized a few things about the world and decided maybe I was meant for something more than a self-serving life. I still carried on as a teenager but it wouldn't be until my senior year of high school when I would make a commitment. I remember my dad wanted to call up my recruiter and punch him in the face. I had a future, and to him it was not one of an enlisted man. I had another girlfriend at the time who was willing to do anything for me, not wanting to worry about anyone back home and wanting to life my life on my own I cast a perfectly nice person aside for my own gain. I now live with that every day of my life. I've been forgiven by her numerous times and told that it was no one's fault really, but I know better than that now, such is growing up. I would move out of my parent's house and up to tallahassee where I would attend Florida State University, I would spend my time there lazily spending my days on a couch where I would either drink myself into oblivion, play video games, or both. I found out I would be deploying to Iraq in the fall of 2008, I didn't have the balls to tell my family for nearly three months. This deployment has taught me a lot of who I am, who you can depend on in life, and what other people live like in other parts of the world. I've learned I'm very proud to be an American and consider myself fortunate enough to grow up where I did. I end this decade the same way I came into it. Single. full head of hair. and sober. here's to the aughts. the decade that I grew up in.