The first time I went through the police academy was in 1998.

On January 19, I’ll start all over again.

Because I’ve been out of law enforcement for more than 15 years, my Alabama certification is no longer active, so I have to complete the whole academy. There isn’t a shortened version based on the years I spent doing the job. I’ll walk in as a student, meet the same standards as everyone else, and put in the work. That means getting ready for more than a fitness test, and I’m doing it with a torn LCL and meniscus.

When you know the minimum score, it’s tempting to make that the goal. I don’t think that’s enough. That first test will happen before anything else at the academy, and nobody is going to stop the day to ask how I’m feeling before my number comes up. So I’m not only training for what’s on the test. I’m working on being able to keep going when I’m already in pain and would rather stop.

There are also a lot of small things I don’t want to be figuring out once the academy starts. Clothes and equipment need to be ready. I need to keep up with deadlines, eat right, go to bed when I should, and get up when the alarm goes off. None of that is complicated, but a hard day gets harder when I create problems I could’ve handled the night before.

I’ve spent years making decisions, supervising people, and running and gunning in some of the most dangerous places on earth. When I get to the academy, I’ll be a student, and that may be one of the more important things for me to remember.

I’m going to make mistakes, and I’m going to be corrected. Some of that correction may come in front of the whole class, but my job won’t be to explain how much experience I have or why I did something a certain way. My job will be to listen, fix it, and do it correctly the next time.

There’s nothing wrong with asking a question when you don’t understand something. That’s different from arguing because you don’t like being corrected. If twenty-eight years of life after the first academy has taught me anything, it should be how to tell the difference.

My reason for being there may be unusual, but the class isn’t about me. Some of the people there will run faster than I do. Some will pick up parts of the coursework faster. I may have experience that helps somebody else. I also need to be willing to accept help when I need it.

I’m not returning to prove that I can still put on a uniform, and I don’t need an academy class to tell me whether I’ve done police work. I’m going because the position I accepted comes with requirements, and I don’t believe my experience should excuse me from meeting them. Neither does the state.

There will probably be days when I question why I agreed to do this again. That’s normal. But I know why I’m going, and that matters more than how motivated I feel on any one morning.

I don’t expect the academy to be the same as it was in 1998, and I know I’m not the same. For now, all I can do is get myself ready, show up on January 19, and do the work.