9,829 miles away in a country I would never go otherwise, alone, lost, confused; for the next two years of my life, or so it seemed. The only thing to differentiate me between the others, the black name tag clipped proudly onto my white shirt pocket, plastered with my new name front and center. The tag, worn so valiantly by tens of thousands across the world, a symbol to many of independence, honor, and guidance, I never knew it would make it’s way inside of a box full of memories, stashed away in my closet just two months into the long awaited chapter of my life.
What I thought would be a big piece of history from my time in Johannesburg, South Africa to show what I had accomplished, and what I had become had quickly become an object I no longer wanted to look at. Feelings of inadequacy, and failure resonate from that little piece of plastic. The box inside my closet, housing the name tag, along with books I never bothered to read, and small trinkets my mother had given me to give away to the children that never made their way out of my backpack, is occasionally sifted through to gain closure and feel of the times I had expected to be the best times of my life. Nothing sends more emotion and tingling down my spine and flashbacks in my mind than a quick glance at the tag engraved Elder Heaps. The pain of disappointment and the sorrow and embarrassment will eventually go away, but the marvelous opportunity I had to have clipped that black name tag to my white shirt and wear it for the short time I did, is an opportunity to never be forgotten.
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