After a 3 month wait, a 6-hour flight and an awkward bus ride, I had finally arrived at my destination, the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra, ready to begin my journey as an Officer Cadet of the Australia Army. It was a tri service (Army, Navy and Air Force) training base where selected students, who after several months of sporadic bursts of physical, intellectual, and psychological testing and a sufficiently high enough Tertiary Entrance Rank (TER), were able to complete their university studies whilst completing officer training for their respective military service.
It was a completely foreign world to me. I had never known anyone in the military. I’d never been to Canberra. I didn’t know a single thing about wars and politics. I had flown across the country, miles away from my home, to train in an environment I had zilch experience of, for a reason I wasn’t really sure about.
I know what you’re thinking diary, what an odd thing to be doing. Well you’re right. It was a bit of a weird life choice. Yet I felt oddly compelled to do it. Rather than jump straight into this illusive concept of intuition or some sort of spiritual guidance too soon, let me try and give you a rational explanation of what was going on in my head.
Whilst my sufficiently high enough 98.6 TER had secured me a place in the Academy’s Academic Excellence Program (yes, I did shamelessly mention the number, so you’d think I was smart), it had unfortunately fallen short of my initial goal of getting into medicine. Post high school, I’d spent the best part of a year moping about, working at a hotel reception and trying to piece together a meaningful direction for my life.
I felt obliged to be prestigious but genuinely wanted to help people. Beside the cliché, become a doctor, I wasn’t sure how I was going to achieve those things. I’d worked myself into a nervous wreck to finish high school on an academic high and once the structure and routine had fallen away, I had realised that I was quite a mess. How does one: make enough money, achieve something impressive, help others, alleviate suffering, follow your passion and find joy and fulfilment in a career choice. All the life guides floating around out there had different advice, so did all the people who wrote them! It was like some cruel maze and if I wasn’t allowed to start hacking through the hedges, I just sort of sat down overwhelmed, staring at all the green walls.
I needed an adventure, a cause and a good kick up the backside to get me going again and what better way to find those things than running away to join the military. Surely war zones would keep me busy enough, give me a chance to help and protect, provide me with some collegiate appreciation and success. Heck, maybe even some genuinely close friends. It seemed a good escape route as any.
I was studying a degree in International Relations at ADFA whilst training to become an Army Officer. True, I didn’t know a huge amount about politics or geography but a bit of a controversy, a bit of intrigue and a bit of challenge seemed like a good recipe for success. You see, I’d always been determined, compliant and capable, which seemed to make military life an accurate fit. There was a part of me though which was going to be a bit of a square peg in a round hole. I was the soppy type who loved poetry, romanticism, and star gazing. This part of myself was going to be a bit awkward amongst the regimented structure of a productivity driven institution.
I often think about all the decisions that led me to that place, so far from where I’d lived and so far from who I was. Maybe it was blind luck or the odds of incalculable statistical likelihoods but by the end of that first day, I genuinely felt that I was there because of the divine hand of fate. While my practical mind likes to tell me otherwise, I think that I was drawn to this militant academy on the other side of the country, not for the reasons I just told you, but because there was something waiting there for me, or rather someone. Is that silly diary? Grown-ups aren’t supposed to believe in fate and destiny anymore, and yet, despite my university degrees and logical, analytical brain, I still do.
So there I was, fresh off my flight, standing in line in my collared shirt and tightly pulled back bun, alongside my equally nervous and awkward peers at the Mess Hall of ADFA. As we had our names ticked off the list, we were accompanied to our divisions. Our division was to become our makeshift family. The people we would train with and live with for the coming year at least. I gazed idly through the huge Mess Hall foyer where we were lined up. The foyer sat on an open plan upper story, that oversaw a massive dining area below. The carpets looked like maroon velvet and every surface was sleek, sharp and shiny.
There were men and women in uniform everywhere. The Navy whites, the Air Force blues and the Army khaki. They all seemed to move with such purpose. Every movement of their heads, eyes and hands seemed to be completed with an almost mechanical sense of rigid certainty. I felt like I’d entered some weird, sci fi world of human-looking robots. But had to quell that thought pretty quickly because imaginations were not allowed in places like this!
When I was finally called up to the desk, I saw the uniformed men sitting in front of me exchange looks, mutter something to each other and then smirk at me. “A nice dully this one,” he said before asking me my name. To give you a hint, dullies were something that were hunted by man whores who objectified women. A dully was something I most certainly was not and I would have quite enjoyed telling those boys what I really thought of their patriarchal ideas of toxic masculinity. But again, I had to stop that thought pretty quick, because speaking your mind was also not something you were allowed to do in a place like this!
A very tall, very stern young man in uniform then told me to follow him. I did as I was told. Something I became increasingly good at over the coming months. I dragged my suitcase up the inclining pavement that sloped up from the Mess Hall to reveal a smattering of four storey buildings, full of dorm rooms. They were a tan brick colour and spanned 8 rooms on each floor with a common room sitting in the middle, that sat over a paved area below, known as the breezeway.
As I mustered the strength to climb the last flight of steps up the incline, I hoisted my bag up beside me and took stock of the ground floor breezeway of 5 Division, my new home. I was already starting to question my sense of belonging in a place like this. But having no better ideas, I just decided to roll with it, hoping that some sense of purpose would reveal itself. And reveal itself it would, in the following 30 seconds.
I casually turned my head to the right to take in the breezeway and found myself struck by something very unexpected.
There was a group of about 5 people talking by a bench about 12m away. My eyes found a young midshipman, standing in his ironed whites, a strong muscular build firm underneath them, chatting casually with his friends. When I saw his face, I kid you not, I was struck with the most surreal moment of my life.
As the late January sun relaxed into the horizon, time itself seemed to move in slow motion. I felt an unfamiliar surge of warmth, giddiness and butterflies all at once in my chest. What the hell was this? I was a romantic, I’d give you that, but I had never felt anything like this before. I felt an involuntary smile take over my face and I know it’s hard to believe, but the following thought, clear as day, popped into my head. It said – that’s the man I’m going to marry.
May I just note here that this man, or at 19, boy is probably a more fitting term, hadn’t even noticed me. He was at this moment completely oblivious to my existence and would remain pretty oblivious for quite some time.
My rather unexpected and dramatic thought was promptly followed by a barrage of self-criticism at the naivety of my fluttering chest and jelly legs about a man who I had never seen before. I hadn’t even heard his voice. I had no idea of his age, name or personality.
And yet, I had an irrational, unrelenting assurance that this man was the one I would love with every fibre of my being. Isn’t that crazy diary? Don’t you think fate had surely had her hand in this moment, or……… was I just being completely ridiculous?
You know, nearly 12 years later, I still wrestle with this. What happens to us to cause such an all-encompassing instinct. Believe me when I say diary; I hadn’t ever, nor would I ever, have a premonition like it again.
My escort, cleared his throat to regain my attention. I refocussed myself on the stairs and the war with my inner voice started as I was shown to my room. I said to myself, you silly, naïve, pathetic romantic. You’ve not even been here an hour and you’ve already convinced yourself that you’re in love with someone you’ve never met. I could feel my inner self rolling her eyes at me. And I thought she was right. This was silly and immature and I needed to focus on what was in front of me. But the voice in my head, try as it may, could never overpower that intuitive gut feeling.
I threw my bags onto my bed in a huff, straightened my neatly tided bun and gave myself a stern look in the mirror. I could do this. I was a mature, strong willed woman, not a fanciful love-sick puppy.
Oh but I love sick puppy, I would be diary. Not just for that afternoon, or the week that followed, or my time in Canberra, but for the rest of my life.
You see diary, I have since spent the last 12 years of my life working out what my intuition managed to see in just a glimpse. That this man, was the Ying to my Yang, the one thing that has brought me more joy and meaning than anything else I’ve ever had or ever done. He is the greatest treasure I have ever found and loving him, my most valued accomplishment.
Though I fought it, wrestled with it, denied it and tried to outthink it. My gut instinct, my intuition, whatever we call it, was right diary. It was right!
I have since taken a heed of this lesson diary. That the voice within us, the one we feel deep in our gut, our soul, is so much wiser and knowing than we realise. It needn’t be ridiculed or silenced or ignored. It must be respected and listened to diary.
We so often look outwards when we’ve lost our way, when we don’t know what to do or where to go. But we needn’t diary. Our best navigator, the captain of our ship, is within us, and it knows the way. It will guide us to our treasures, if we only let it.
Diary, I still have much to tell you about what happened after this. In the wise words of William Shakespeare, ‘the course of true love never did run smooth.’ Each storm, each shipwreck and each sunny day of sailing that followed holds another experience and lesson to tell you. But the point of this story is, that on the 8th January 2009, I found my true north diary and it set the course for the rest of my life.
Isn’t it fascinating, how the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step? My step onto that breezeway began a journey full of stories. How many breezeway moments like this are happening all around us? How many sparks starting eternal flames? How many stories like this, creating more stories?
How I long for every one of them to be told.
Until next time,
The Reformist Princess
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