Wandering Wahls

At my last entry I whined a bit about feeling “lost” after retirement. Thanks to my wonderful AF friends, I had replies that confirmed this was not at all unusual. My amazing husband also gives me unending support. So I am now feeling that it’s OK to take some time for myself. One thing that’s been great is going to the gym at the Air Force Academy every day. Wow, I never had time to do that while on active duty. I even get a personalized strength-training lesson with the exercise physiologist from the HAWC. She was explaining the machine to work on the “latissimus dorsi”, and the other retiree with me happily shouted, “Oh, you mean the bra overhang.” We had a good laugh, and I wondered why the girl in her 20’s didn’t get it.

I’ve also taken the time to go to daily mass. (It’s Lent after all.) When I was active duty I barely had time to run in for ashes on Ash Wednesday. I feel so lucky and blessed to have this time to devote to my spiritual growth, and improve my physical health as well.

Mostly I am embracing the importance of being home with my children. I love picking them up from school and hearing all about their day. I have signed up for PTO activities and started volunteering in the lunchroom. (Now that’s a great way to spy on your 7th grader, much to his dismay!) I even have dinner cooked for Tom when he comes home from work. After all, that was HIS job for 12 years. As soon as we move in to our house, I might even have warm cookies waiting for the kids.

Now how is that for transitioning?

Stopping the RV has been interesting. There are times I feel like I should be hooking up the car, putting the antenna down, and plug an address into the GPS for our next stop. Of course, this may be due to single digit weather as opposed to a feeling to get on the road again.

However, the arrival here has been a culture shock – and a shock in general. Getting used to having to arrive at work at a specified time has been a change. But, I’m teaching at a good school and in a great department, so it has been easy to ease into a new career (“about time” as my brother-in-law would say).

Then there was the car search. We lost a perfectly good, high mileage, well maintained, Volvo early in the trip. It burned to the ground while being stored over a weekend by a mechanic. Unfortunately, the storage building was owned and shared by three local businesses, so finding fault was like finding good Mexican food in Europe. We went through USAA for the loss, but the payment didn’t quite equal the real value, and it was less the deductible (how about this for a bad choice: I raised our deductible before the trip in order to save premium, and we end up having 4 claims during the trip that more than exceeded the premium savings).

Anyway, looking for a second car was not so much an eye-opener but a reminder of how much I despise buying cars. The Scotch-Irish in me made me look for used cars instead of buying a new vehicle. We had to deal with the anonymity of CraigsList  and local want ads, and the related cynicism about the real reason the car is being sold. And, of course we met the local car dealers’ salesmen (they’re always men, but that’s probably a positive statement regarding the integrity of women). I’ve never met so many best friends in such little time who really cared about my family (my hand was on my wallet the whole time).

In the end, we came across a nice guy who emigrated here from Poland a few years ago (I mention that only in honor of my late mom who was always proud of her Polish heritage – she would have enjoyed meeting him). He had an ’05 vehicle with low mileage and a great price. On top of that, he owns a few hotels around Colorado and threw in a free weekend at his hotel in the mountains at Frisco, CO.

Things are settling well. Now, on to the house issue.

It’s been 18 months since my retirement from the Air Force, but the reality of this retirement is just now sinking in. The first couple months of the trip were busy with the actual move back to the USA, searching for and negotiating the RV, and planning our trip. Once we took off, we were consumed with the adventure itself. There were travel routes to plan (many on the fly), destination spots to research, and kids to teach! My days were filled with new and amazing discoveries of our beautiful country, as well as discoveries of my own family—things that I missed when I was active duty. Being together 24 hours a day for 16 months in 200 sq. feet of living space fostered a kind of family intimacy that I had never imagined.

Now as we transition from RV life to “real life” in Colorado Springs, I can’t help but feel a bit lost. The kids are in school, Tom has started his job, and I am feeling role confusion. I have always been an active duty mother—squeezing in motherly duties between the military duties, and relying on my great husband to keep the house together. Now it’s my turn…and it feels strange. Filling out paperwork at the dentist’s office today, I pondered on the line “occupation.” First, I put “retired”. No, sounds too old. Then I put “RN.” But I’m not actually working as an RN. I scratched that out, and put “housewife.” But we don’t have a house yet, and no one would get “RV-wife”. By that time there wasn’t room for “transitioning.”

To get to Colorado Springs, we had to drive through two songs. First we went backwards through the tune of Route 66 via “Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino…” We got our kicks on Route 66, if only for the few remaining miles that exist with the Interstate. After getting hip to Bobby Troup’s kind of trip, I’ve got to believe it must have been a lot more fun in Mr. Troup’s time than now. The sections are full of truck stops, strip malls, and housing developments.

Our second traveling-through-a-song adventure came as I exited in Arizona to get diesel. While waiting for the 80-gallon tank to fill up (I wish I had kept track of the life minutes lost while filling the RV’s tank over the last 16 months), I realized I was standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. As I contemplated Jackson Browne’s lyrics (though made famous by the Eagles), and felt like a free sprit looking for flat bed Ford, I realized there was a girl in an RV door peering out to take a look at me – but it was to hurry up, the tank had been filled for awhile.

At least I’m not “running on empty” – yet.