would you go to war for it?

thinking about the potential for a military draft

I’m twenty-four years old, and my age is fifth in line for the draft. At least, I think that’s how it works. It’s funny, I confess with a burdened irony, that the night after I feel like I have a five-year plan, I’ve become panicked about the potential draft for World War Three. It hasn’t been announced (I worry… yet) but these things like names always come in retrospect like regret.

I’ve spiraled—watching videos on how to evade the draft simply because I don’t agree with war as a concept. There is no need for asserting dominance when we have words, though sometimes the latter is not always respected, and in this case, this is true. I don’t want to condone our president because he is not my president. I did not vote for him, yet I have to suffer from the consequences of his geriatric decision making in the name of “democracy”.

I have diabetes. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself so I can document it for my potential evasion. I also have chronic anxiety and depression. Anything to keep me from entering a barrack.

I’m stuck. I don’t know the point of doing anything currently because life has felt like an in-between. Previously, it was the transition from student to working adult. Now, it’s citizen to soldier. I am not built to be a soldier. I’m confident in my capabilities for strategy. My intellect would keep me from being on the front lines, but if I was forced to hold a gun, my precision and preparation for survival would allow for my living, but if I am not doing what I want, if I am forced to perform heinous acts for something I don’t believe in, am I living?

I worry I’ve become a zombie. I bartended for thirty-one hours in a four-day period, and I felt stupid entering my tips while the finals between Oklahoma and Indiana concluded. This championship has stretched out this summer, matching the slow but silent harmonica heat of the South. I’m making mocktails, muddling kiwis, while I worry about the absurd reality that life, my life, this life will not exist in a year. I may not exist in a year, yet I’m pouring out beers, smiling at people, and getting my thirty percent tips while I might not even be alive to reap the benefits of this.

I cannot fathom looking at a resume, worrying about my career when, right now, I feel like I’m living on borrowed time.

I no longer have time for useless emotions like my rage towards my parents or the shame I have for myself. For existing. For apologizing. For hurting. I shouldn’t allow the classification of emotions, but I cannot regard them anymore. I won’t. I don’t know how long this will last, but I don’t want to hold onto heavy emotions. There’s already so much pulling me down to where it feels like Gravity is working twice as hard to keep me sedentary.

I’m sitting in my room, drinking my second iced coffee, and grieving my life in case I don’t get to. At least, I will have done it for myself. This is one of the cases where I feel comfortable in potentially grieving something twice, in this case: the comfort of the life I’ve cultivated. I sit on my mattress and stare at my personal library. I look at all the books I’ve read and all the books I’ve yet to consume and realize that I may never get to read everything I own. It makes me angry. I’ve started to read voraciously. Without the ignorance that I have all the time in the world because it is today, but always, have I realized I do not.