Where I'm Going, Not Forgetting Where I've Been

I had my first army reserves interview this week. It was productive, a little funny and a bit thought provoking.
Let me address those concepts one by one. The productive first I think. I did very well in my general ability/math test, to the point where I can apply for what ever roll I want, the only things that appeared to be off the table were the roles that are available to men only. I took my uni grades not lower high school grades and they wouldn't accept them - said I was over qualified. Also you have to fill out a very comprehensive medical questionnaire. This may be where I have a hiccough. I filled it out honestly which means to the question 'have you ever self harmed?' I answered yes. Of course I was not impressed with the fact self harm was lumped into the same question as suicide,  because I never came close to that and anyone who really knows anything about self harm knows that the two aren't necessarily linked, people who self harm don't always escalate to suicide and those who commit suicide often don't self harm. The nurse said there may be further questions about that. I said fine it's all out there in the open any way, not something I brag about but not something I hide away either. The long and the short is I should hear from my case officer soon and I can progress with my application.
To the funny; well there was the inappropriately popped open button, the trigonometry questions that caused me to giggle (I haven't done those sort of questions in 20 odd years), the fact I was the only female (there was only 3 of us in a group of about 20) over the age of about 20, and the fact the test computer knocked 10 years off my age. Not to mention my interviewer said one of the roles I had written down as being interested in was only available to those who had a degree in journalism, to which I responded with a 'here it is,' and put it on the table in front of him. He also told me I was a little different, well obviously, I'm female and twice the age of most candidates.
This brings us to the thought provoking part of our blog tonight. I had hit my pre-interview goal for physical fitness 45-50 sit ups, 10 push ups and 5.1 on the sprints, (point of note my pb is 5.2). Then I mentioned this to one of the other candidates in the form of saying sprints were my weakness but I was happy because I hit my goal which was police fit. His response was 'well that's not very fit'. Then went on to say the test was only base line fitness, blah, blah, blah. In one fell swoop he disregarded all the effort I had put in to get to that point. Then a 17 year old said it should be easy to do 50 push ups and level 11 on the sprints. Candidate #1 wasn't impressed with the young guys response due to his age. I told them both the suck it up because I was much older than them. Yeah sure it's funny that Candidate #1 got immediate karma but it still bugged me a bit.
It was the total disregard to my effort that pissed me off the most. He made a judgment based on his own paradigm of fitness, he has no concept as to what it is to be an almost 40 year old mother of two, who up until 18 months ago couldn't bring herself to exercise in any way other than the occasional walk to the shop (I figured being on my feet most days for work was enough). Me I now run 4 km's in about half an hour and in two and a half weeks or so that I'd improved my sprints from 2.8 and an 'OMG what the hell do I think I'm doing' to 5.2 sprints and 3 x 400m fartlek laps after. On top of all that I do weights and core training about 5 - 6 nights a week. This is a big thing. Up until about 2 months ago my exercise consisted of three 3km runs a week and even then it was an effort to drag my butt into my training shoes. Running is still not something I really like, I do however like weights, but it's not such a drag.
In two months I have come a huge way, so while these young gym monkeys who have very little life experience will continue to judge me on the me they see now, I need to remind myself that they know so very little. While I pursue this part of my life I should never lose sight of where I came from, it gives perspective and hopefully when I feel down, and yes even judged, I can hold on to the knowledge that I have already come one hell of a long way.