Life Changes

I've recently gone through quite a few significant milestones in my life.

In October, after nearly a dozen years of wearing a uniform for the Army of the United States, I ended my time in service to this country. In November I got married to my best-friend and long-term/long-distance fiance. And in December we made a move, halfway across the country, to our new home. It's mid-January now, and finally we're all settled! All of the boxes have been delivered and emptied. Furniture, decor, books, and all other manners of items have all found a new spot in our new home. Heretofore my days have been filled with cleaning the house, breaking down boxes, and putting everything away.  Now I find myself with a lot of time on my hands, wondering what to do.

I've always worked at something my whole life.  When I was young I worked hard in school because I wanted to go to a good college.  I worked hard in college so that I could be successful in my career. And for the past 7.5 years I've worked hard at my job because I felt my Soldiers deserved the best from me.  However, as much as I loved my career in the Army, I didn't love it as much as my husband.

Life and love cannot always be measured by the success of one's job.  Indeed, in my seven and a half years of service, I never got to truly "be" with the man I loved for more than a week at a time - and that was only when we were both able to schedule leave for a span of several days.  Otherwise we spent time on long-weekends, traveling to where the other person was stationed.  We saw one another about 5 times a year.  I spent my twenties developing relationships with my Soldiers every-day, face-to-face, but was relegated to develop my love and my relationship with my boyfriend, lover and later fiance over the telephone.  In many ways it forced us to truly communicate and therefore really get to know one another on a completely different level.  Still, it was hard and trying, and like all relationships, had it's ups and downs.  Indeed, in just the past five years we spent three deployments away from one another (each averaging a year in length), never knowing when we would be able to talk the next time, and never knowing - truly - what the other one was going through.

I made a decision to get out of the Army because I knew our relationship could not take another year apart. Loving someone is a commitment, and my commitment at this point in my life is to having/developing a family, not fostering my potential life-long career in the military. It's hard to be a dual-miltary couple, and I take my hat off to those that stay-in and serve together, while raising a family; it's - perhaps - one of the hardest jobs out there.  

So, here I am.  Just Married - Just Moved - Just Me.  There are so many things I want to try, so many things I've been meaning to do, so many things I want to be.  I have a year here at our new duty station.  There's nothing holding me back to try anything and everything in the world in figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.  But what is that? With all of the time in the world and nothing holding me back from doing whatever I want to do, what do I do?