My Shattered Dream

Ever since I was two years old, one thing was in my mind when I grew up; to be a fighter pilot for the United States Air Force. I always collected Matchbox metal planes and play with them as if I were flying them. I even collected anything other toy planes and played with them in the same manner. I made a vow to myself that I’d be the best fighter pilot in the Air Force. Unfortunately, that is the only vow that I know of that I will never keep.

When I reached my first year in second grade I had found out that I was diagnosed with ADD at first and started taking meds for it. Everywhere I went I was diagnosed with the same thing but some also said that I was diagnosed with ADHD. It wasn’t until I reached the age of sixteen that I had found out that I was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. In case you don’t know what it is, it’s an autistic disorder that affects my social abilities and can make me see things in a black & white perspective (Not saying that I’m colorblind mind you.) and hardly tell the difference between teasing and joking.

After talking to some military officers, I found out that none of their branches accept a person who is diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. The whole idea crushed me, I had always dreamed of being a fighter pilot for the US and now I can never achieve that dream. I’ve been told that I can still be my own personal pilot or an airline pilot, but that’s not enough for me. I want to fly, yes, but I also want to fly a fighter and not a civilian plane. With a military jet I can defend the US from any attacks as well as see the world as I get reassigned to different locations.

So now here I am, struggling to find an alternative to being a military fighter pilot and try to make my way around real life. My life-long dream is shattered, and I can never join the military in either branch. I’m having real difficulty deciding on what to do as an alternate career but I don’t really know what my strongpoint is. I am a good author, but not that good, I do tend to correct people in pronunciation and grammar in their speech, and I don’t know what else. Academically, I am an average student but I don’t know what to do after high school and college.

So you can imagine life is hard for me now without my life-long dream to fulfill. When you’ve set your eyes on a career that you can’t achieve it’s hard to find anything else to do as an alternative. For me, it’s too hard to accept the fact that I can’t join the military. Flying jets at air shows in the future may help, but I still don’t want to fly unarmed jets in case of wartime. Playing video games is close, but not close enough for me. I just wish I was never diagnosed with this; but if I wasn’t then I wouldn’t be the person I am now.

I mean, it also affects my judgement on things like drugs, alcohol, smoking, and sex. Let’s just face it, I was meant to be diagnosed with this until the day that I die. If the big man himself intended for this, then he did it for a reason and for what reason, I don’t know. But this is what it’s like to have a shattered dream.