Post-Military Life

                When I initially decided to separate from the Air Force under the pregnancy clause, I decided it would be a brilliant idea to turn around and enlist in the Air Force Reserves. That way, I could retain TriCare for my family and only work part-time, which would be phenomenal with a new baby. After arriving in Washington and speaking with the in-service recruiter at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, however, the reserves unit here decided they wouldn’t take me because my last official physical fitness test was a failure. They didn’t want to set me up to fail again after joining, since I was pregnant at the time—it made sense, so I decided I’d try again a few months after having my baby.

                I stand by my decision to separate. As a breastfeeding mother, I rest easily in the knowledge that I can provide for my daughter better as a civilian than I could have as an Airman—regardless of whether or not my husband had been able to remain enlisted. At the time of my decision to separate, I didn’t know how much longer Randy would be in the military; the mental health clinic was working on the paperwork to have him go through the Medical Evaluation Board (MEB) for separation, which can take up to a year to fully process. He would have been stuck in place at Spangdahlem while I was scheduled to PCS (change bases) in August, 2014 (I would have moved right after Persephone was born). The last thing I wanted to do was get to my next base and have to worry about finding child care; I refused to take my baby to the on-base Child Development Center (CDC) with what I knew about Spangdahlem’s CDC and I sure as hell didn’t want to start screening babysitters. I generally don’t trust people.

                It has taken me some time after separating—and upon deciding to separate and getting the ball rolling to do so, it was decided that Randy’s separation would be much, much faster than an MEB because his would be an administrative discharge instead—but I have finally realized something very important about myself.

                Everything I had done with my life up to that point—short of the decisions to get married and separate from the military—I had done to impress my family and make them proud of me. Joining the military—I wanted my grandparents, particularly my grandma, to be pleased with the decision I’d made post-high-school to move forward in my life and become independent, as I’m a fiercely independent person anyway but hadn’t decided what I wanted to do, really. After joining the military, getting a bit out of shape, and deciding to get back into shape for my own happiness (it was working), I was looking at new clothes in a completely different style from what I really like. I was beginning to replace my wardrobe with jeans, scarves, nice coats (oh, they’re nice and I’m keeping them, but my intentions for how to wear them have changed), and… well, white and generally much less black. In addition to the lightening of my wardrobe, I’d grown my hair out just past my shoulders, which was, suffice to say, very much not me. I really prefer my hair short and ready to spike up at will.

This is an acceptable outfit—would be more so if the undershirt were black.

This is where my wardrobe was going—maroon and white—and the skirt is acceptable but there simply isn’t enough black, here.

                I like having a dark wardrobe. I like having black as my primary color and I like wearing dark makeup. I like looking intimidating and formidable, strong and confident. Since being denied entry to the reserve unit here at JBLM, I’ve realized I don’t particularly want to join the Reserves at all, particularly since my only real reason for doing so is for the insurance—something that we can get with the VA anyway. I’ve begun revamping my wardrobe again—this time, it should be permanent. I’ve bought some long skirts, mostly black but one brown and one green. I’ve decided I want to wear primarily black with some earthy colors as well. I want to look witchy. I want to look like I can walk into the room and cast a spell on you with a look, and I think that look is partially accomplished with long, floor-length gypsy skirts that flow nicely and drag when I go down stairs. I like looking like I could be dressed for Halloween on any day of the year, whether it’s Christmas, my birthday, or actually Halloween (although, naturally, I like to go all out with a costume for Halloween).

                Recently, I used my husband’s detail trimmers on my eyebrows without the guard. I had no idea there was a guard to prevent cutting hairs too short, and ended up nearly shaving my eyebrows off completely. The very next day, I bought an eyebrow pencil and some red lip color since I didn’t have a good one. The eyebrow pencil is dark brown but looks black, and I drew my eyebrows on and took a selfie, which I uploaded to Facebook and subsequently received more likes than I’ve ever received on any of my posts! I also got multiple comments from my guy-friends to the tune of “Wow”, like I’m really sexy and they never noticed, and the way I had my makeup that day really accentuated my look. I looked like a freaking vamp. It was amazing.

                Naturally, because I was truly pleased with it for myself, Mema simply couldn’t approve. She thought my brows were too dark with the pencil, that I’d pressed down too hard or something. The only problem I had with my drawn-on brows was that I’d drawn my right brow thicker than my left. I did much better the next day.

                So, now is the time for the ultimate point of this post.

                I have realized that I no longer care what my family thinks. I don’t give a shit if they’re impressed by what I’m doing or if they approve of my decisions, I’m going to live my life the way I want to so that I’m happy. I married a man who wants nothing more than to make me happy the way I want to be—not in a way that he approves of—because he loves me for who I am and nothing less. So, Mema thinks my brows were too dark and unnatural? Great! I’ll draw them darker and less natural next time! I’ll keep my brows nearly-completely-shaved so that I keep drawing my brows on and I might just wax them off completely to experiment with brow looks! Who knows? It’ll be fun! So, Mema doesn’t like corsets or doesn’t approve of me wearing them? I don’t care! I’ve always wanted to wear corsets and I finally have a couple of them! I’m going to wear them until they freaking break! So, my dad thinks it’s unwise of me to move into an apartment with my best friend? I don’t really care, because I’ve given it an awful lot of thought, talked a lot about it with her, her boyfriend, and my husband, and we’ve decided that it is the best decision for where we currently are in our lives.

                I’m done trying to mold myself into someone or something I’m not just to please my family. I am who I am and if they really can’t accept that, then they can see a lot less of me in the years to come. I’m grateful for everything they have done for me that has helped me in my life—I truly am—but I will no longer lie down and try changing myself to be who they want me to be, nor will I continue living so cautiously that I never take a chance to do what I’m really interested in. I’m going to leap into real estate investment while taking my medical billing specialist course and everything is going to be fucking fantastic, even if it takes a couple of years to get there.

The Other Side of the Planet

                For the past (nearly) three years, I’ve lived in Germany, working with and for Americans yet alongside Germans. The extremely limited amount of German I learned in high school prior to being stationed in Germany helped in the beginning, but didn’t have much chance to expand a whole lot during my stay, as I was surrounded almost constantly by Americans, many of whom couldn’t care less about learning the native language and conversing with the local nationals.

                This past Saturday, 28 June 2014, I flew from Frankfurt, Germany, to Seattle, Washington. I extremely underestimated the kind of culture shock I would experience in returning to America. Everything is so spaced out, so vast, in this country, compared to Europe—and yet, Europe is by far a prettier country than the United States. Where I would see brown, dead grass—where it has clearly been landscaped and the grass should be green—in the US, I know that if I saw such a thing in Europe, that grass would be green. It’s true that the grass is greener in Europe than the USA.

                I live currently with my grandparents…again. I didn’t want to come back. I wanted to serve a full career with the U.S. Air Force, a whole 20 years, and then retire and do something else. I had big plans and big dreams. My time in Germany served to crush every plan and dream I had—not because of the country or the area; as a matter of fact, it was wonderful to be in Europe—but rather because of the kind of people with whom I had to work. I didn’t want to separate from the military…but I found out I’m pregnant.

                My grandma asked me just the other night why it was that I separated early rather than sticking it out to the end of my enlistment. At the time that I discovered I was pregnant, I thought my husband would be placed before the Medical Evaluation Board for medical retirement from the military. It was coming up on the time that we would be PCSing—moving to a new base—and an MEB could take up to a year to complete. I was afraid that if I didn’t separate, or at least transfer out of active duty into the guard or reserve, that I would PCS without my husband and end up in a new place with a brand-new baby. If that happened, I would have had to find childcare for my new baby while I went to work, and this was absolutely not something I wanted to do! I don’t trust people and I sure as hell wouldn’t trust the Child Development Center on base to take care of her! So, I made the decision to separate. I figured I should have enough time then that if Randy goes before the MEB, I wouldn’t have to worry about anything. I would become his dependent and all would be well.

                Randy’s MEB was turned down. Suddenly, he was going to have an administrative discharge instead of a medical retirement. It was still honorable, but it didn’t provide benefits post-separation. His separation date ended up being effective the day before we were to fly out of Germany—the 27^th of June, when our flights were supposedly scheduled for the 28^th.

                My flight had no issues. I flew with both of our cats, arrived safely, met up with my dad and grandma (and baby brother), and proceeded to my grandparents’ house—only to find out that Randy had been stuck at Frankfurt overnight because SATO, the place on base that schedules the flights, completely fucked him over! They had scheduled his flight for the 27^th, like a bunch of idiots, when we had specifically asked for the 28^th multiple times!

                He made it safely in Indiana…luckily. His mother insisted on keeping him for two goddamned weeks, while I’m in Washington having to hurry up and figure a whole bunch of stuff out. My husband gets to meet up with his friends and have a good old time while I’m trying to get shit done in Washington. I can’t really complain about his mother—she’s doing wonderful things for us, buying us things we’ll need for the baby. It’s just that I want him here sooner than July 11^th and I don’t see why she couldn’t have had him for one week and been happy with it. The only friend I’ve managed to spend time with since I’ve been here is Mary, my best friend. I feel like I have other people who want to see me, whom I haven’t been able to see yet.

                Some good news is, today, I managed to finish my first list of reviews for porn websites. It might not be the most honorable job—at least, it isn’t if you’re some kind of stuck-up prick who’s too good to look at porn—but it will ultimately pay me $245.00. The list I finished today will get me $50 of that and then I’ll have a new list of sites to review. I haven’t gotten back to work with my other client, yet, but I did message him to say that I want to begin work on the company review he wants, come this Friday.

                My cats were traumatized for the first couple of days after getting to the house. I have them in my little brother’s old room—it used to be mine, before I left and my grandma switched all the furniture. The beds are gone, now, and I put in a couple of litter boxes with food, water, a couple toys, and a scratcher. The cats mostly hide in the closet, but they’ve reached the point that when I go into the room to visit them, they come out and give me love. It fills me with a warm and fuzzy kind of joy when they come out for me and start purring, rubbing their adorable faces against my legs and hands and chasing the laser I point around for them. I’ve discovered that Ajani, my male cat, is a catnip addict. I bought a little thing of catnip spray and I use it on the scratcher when I visit the cats, so that they know that’s a good thing to scratch. Ajani goes nuts and smashes his face against the thing, scratches the hell out of it, and even licks it, getting himself high as a kite! Liliana is a little less affected, but she enjoys it as well. I can’t wait to have my own place with Randy, our cats, and our baby—as I don’t expect to move out from my grandparents’ house until after the baby is born.

                It’s weird, extremely surreal, being in the United States again.