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  2020-03-17

  The Boots I Did Not Wear

  I had planned to enter a boot camp, non-military, for personal growth. This specific boot camp was run by a religious organization and one of my older brothers had gone through it. I had previously prepared to go through it and had been postponed by a serious leg injury. After the injury I had decided to wait to try to do the training, and instead start my college journey. After my completion of an Associates Degree, I had planned to enter the boot camp and was preparing for it in early 2020, all registered and was staying at a nearby relative's house in the last days before the opening day of the boot camp. Less than a week until training was to commence, the program heads made a decision to cancel the upcoming Basic Training Unit as precautions for COVID 19 began to spike. Instead of spending months in basic training, I spent months with family as a sort of stay in vacation with them. As enjoyable as the time was, much of that time felt like a standstill in my personal growth and development. Work was unavailable, going out of the house was extremely limited, and I could not begin to further my education until a suitable way upon which to learn in the midst of a pandemic was decided. The pandemic shifted my plans for the immediate and the moderately near future as well as convince me that two denials of the chance to attend the Basic Training were a clear sign to dissuade me from a third attempt. Instead, I made plans to attend college at FGCU to continue past an AA toward a BA. The pandemic changed life plans to an extent and also changed how my young adulthood was affected by society and the government. The boots in the picture are the boots I was to wear during the boot camp, and now they sit in storage waiting for use and destined for nothing more than a photograph for archivists to use in 100 years when writing their homework about plagues and pandemics.