It’s been a month now. A month of civilian normalcy, whatever that is, and questions and uncertainties. It is not everything we thought it would be or more–
It’s been hard.
“Hard”—
–hah. A small word for weeks of turmoil and rolling emotions and unstripping years of military programming.
They tell you jobs aren’t easy to come by when you get out of the military, but they don’t tell you when you apply for a job so simple as a Home Depot associate that you’ll be told no because you’re overqualified. It doesn’t matter how motivated you are, how early you show up for the job fair, how you ace the interview. Small jobs don’t want you because they know they can’t keep you; big jobs want master’s degrees and things that veterans who enlisted out of high school don’t have.
Praise Jesus, my husband found a job.
There were many almosts that led to this point–“We want you but nothing is available, we might have a job for you in September, your resume is fantastic and we’re highly motivated to hire you!”
Then dead ends. So we stopped looking for the “dream job” and started looking for any job. But they took one look at my husband’s extremely impressive resume and wanted to know why on earth he would want to work as an entry level store clerk. He didn’t really, but when you need a job to support your family you can’t be too picky, right?
One day an angel of a recruiter told my husband she would find him a job and sure enough, within a week he had an offer for almost his dream job. When we get some more details, yes, there will be an update.
Job is checked off the list.
Next comes a home.
Currently, we live in my parent’s basement and that sounds a whole lot worse than it is. In all honestly, it’s the best! We have our own space, my siblings are home from college and my kids adore them; it truly is the perfect place for our very large family. We’ve shared with you previously that our plan was to build a home and, well, that’s still going to happen, but–
–anyway, I won’t give that away just yet. You’ll get an update later.
For now, our home is here, with my parents, and God provided a fantastic job for my husband after a month of unemployment and questions marks.
There’s the practicalities of moving into the civilian world.
Things like not being able to accrue more than minimal savings with a lower enlisted income. There was no separation pay, the disability check hasn’t kicked in yet. We had to pay for our own move and we have yet to be reimbursed. There was more than one afternoon when I crunched the numbers again and again, hoping something would change enough that it would add up.
Then our HVAC broke–and cost us more than a whole paycheck. There is no financial help getting out which is why our family has been invaluable, plus moving is expensive and there’s not much help available to make it happen if you’re moving father than your home of record.
But we figured that out too.
We moved bills around, we said no to everything for awhile, and God provided some unexpected paychecks that helped us to make it all work together.
The practicalities are complicated and we couldn’t have worked it out alone, but the military taught us flexibility and creativity with so little that allowed us to make it happen.
The emotions, however, we are on our own with.
At the gym this morning, an airman walked into our class in uniform to kiss his wife goodbye. My stomach turned into knots–I will never see my husband in uniform again. I miss it. I miss the community and being a part of something so much bigger than us, something so selfless.
When people ask what we do–well, currently, nothing.
Still transitioning.
And my husband is not the same man he was when he enlisted five years ago. The Marine Corps destroys people to build them back up as warriors. If you know my husband, you know he’s always been a warrior, but the Marine Corps has since weaponized his emotions, his passions.
It’s what they do. It’s why Marines are so efficient and I don’t fault my husband for that.
Only now he’s a weapon in a world that villainizes weapons and that makes it hard to assimilate. A week long Transitional Readiness Seminar is not enough to undo five years of programming, and I’m told that Marines never really go back to “normal.”
Who likes normal anyway? Not this girl.
Still, I look forward to the day our family finds stability again. This new job is still somewhat of another transition, a next step to reach the ultimate goal. I’m doing my very best not to view this coming stage as a stepping stone because we’ll wish our whole lives away if we’re always waiting to “arrive.”
I truly am excited for our next adventure.
What’s it like moving into the civilian world? It happened without fanfare, and now my husband’s service has been reduced to a DD-214, a messed up ankle, and a memory.
But oh, (retrospectively, mostly), what a sweet memory.
My husband wouldn’t want fanfare, anyway–service is not about recognition, and that’s part of what makes our military and my husband so special.
Getting out was anticlimactic, and felt somewhat like flying down a ginormous, slippery slide and slamming straight into a concrete wall. Oh, and then someone dropped a refrigerator on our heads. Everything came to a full stop all at once and it hurt but often, transition is such.
Now, instead of transitioning out, we’re transitioning in. Into our new adventure. Into a whole new world.
I’ll be honest, I miss the military more than I usually say, and so far, civilian life has been harder than military life.
But we made it, just as we always have. I haven’t quite said goodbye yet; I don’t really want to say goodbye. I’ll get there.
It’s been a month now. A month of civilian normalcy, whatever that is, and questions and uncertainties. It is not everything we thought it would be or more–
It’s simply a beautiful, messy adventure. And I’ll relish that.