This past six months has been my fastest six months in the last 20 years. I honestly don’t remember the last time my life flew by so quickly.

I’m not sure what I expected when it comes to being a retired spouse but I’m not sure it was this.  

Being on this side of everything, it’s weird. It’s lonely and it’s home at the same time. It’s as though I’ve been holding my breath for the last 20 years and can finally breathe.

Being a spouse to someone in the military afforded us so many things- living overseas for two years, low (and sometimes no) cost healthcare, new perspectives, seeing and living different opportunities, new lifelong friends. Now I find myself missing some of those things. 

I still have the ability to gain new perspectives, but it is certainly different than before.

I’m now surrounded by people who mostly lived in one place their entire lives. In the most interesting way possible, I find that my experiences and perspective are vastly different from theirs, and yet can be similar at the same time.

I suppose that can be true for anyone, military life or not. 

I see things at the kids’ school that are different from all the other schools they have attended, things that these new schools do that has not been the standard for us at their previous schools.

I have discovered that these things matter because this is our school district now.

My children will all graduate from this district.

I must know and understand these almost foreign ways of doing things instead of glossing over and only kind of being aware of them (as I admit has often been my practice), knowing it won’t really matter because we’re gone in a few years.

(Further clarification: I have four children and when they cover the whole of our education system because of their ages, it’s often hard to keep everything straight, especially when each school has different rules and ways of doing things.)   

Most of the civilian spouses I have met have careers; long time ones at that. While this makes absolute sense, it is so different than what I have seen over the years.

As most milspouses know, it can be very difficult to maintain a job for any real length of time, let alone years.

This is both weird and fascinating for me because I’m not necessarily used to it, and I get to hear about these jobs that I didn’t even know existed.     

I wonder when these things I’m noticing will start being my normal. 

It is very strange to hear my milspouse friends talk about next duty stations, different locations, new possibilities.

It’s a little bittersweet I suppose because that is all I really know. For now, anyway. I’ve heard that retired military life spouses often get a feeling around 3 years after their spouse’s retirement that equates to the desire to purge their stuff.

I think it’s muscle memory. What I find myself wondering is how often does this happen and when, if it is happening, does it fade away?

When does the bittersweet feeling of military life retirement dissipate?

When will I stop finding those little PCS stickers all over our stuff? 

I realize that this new normal for me is only a temporary new normal.

I know that I will adjust, that everything surrounding me will become more familiar, and that I will likely stop seeing and thinking of things with a military spouse lens.

This both gives me comfort and sadness at the same time.

Who am I now that I’m no longer part of this military spouse community? I have never equated my whole life and personality as being “just” a military spouse, but it has been a large part of my life over the past twenty years.

The move to civilian life makes it very strange when military spouse life is what’s familiar. 

“Life is about change. Sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes it’s beautiful. But most of the time, it’s both.” -Lana Lang   

Editor’s Note: We are so excited to have Erin join us as an M:M Experience Blogger. STay tuned for more great pieces from Erin.