Didn't, couldn't

HTA compound feels especially empty tonight. Our seniors and the majority of the NS squads just graduated this evening, and that leaves us junior OCTs pretty much the few remaining groups of people left in the compound. Perhaps a greater sense of solitude promotes more thinking and reflection - a forlorn one at that. Seeing our seniors dawn their long awaited Inspector ranks and culminate their graduation with a grand dinner with their family and loved ones as guests makes you feel a little left behind. No doubt we'll be in the exact same position as them 6 months down the road (it has been almost two months since the Police force pulled us over from the Army to be Officer cadets), I can't help but feel a tad of loneliness. Loneliness comes with NS; at least that's how i feel. Your family gets to see you for only 2/7 of the time. You tend to detract, surely by at least some extent, from society and the world. And then there's people that are always on your mind.

Straight ahead, i see friends move on with their lives. Understandably, friends come and go. More often that not, you don't maintain a constant connection with every good friend except for a select few after a phase in life has passed, even if you shared good times with them back then. Look back, and i see other friends that have yet to overcome the 'A's, and having gone through an extremely winding and unlikely journey of overcoming the 'A's against odds, i feel a certain obligation to illuminate the uncertain path for them, even if it's just by a bit, albeit at the cost of the already deprived personal time i have, with no intention other than easing their journey so that they needn't go through the same extent of pain and risk that i did.

Oddly enough, this sense of obligation extends to a few other strangers as well. I have no delusion about being a panacea for tackling the 'A's, but there's someone whom i came to learn about and whose situation i can especially relate to. Don't ask me how i know without knowing the person; I guess it takes one to know one. Or maybe it's because that i have always been more thankful than proud off my results; and being thankful amplifies empathy. Would you feel good knowing that you could have changed someone's life for the better but leave the person fighting a possibly losing battle for himself/herself?

While i type this in front of my desk in my bunk in the middle of the night while the rest of HTA is asleep, what eats at me is the feeling of helplessness and being stagnant. Being restricted by NS is not as bad as being restricted by circumstance, and that's what it is now. I don't think i can ever feel good should things take a turn for the worse at the end of 'A's this year, even if it doesn't concern by well being.

"What if i had stepped in and lent a helping hand?"

But i didn't. Or couldn't. It won't matter then.