When was the
first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?
Well, I
don’t know if it was the very FIRST time, but certainly the most recent was
when I landed a “real” job here in WA when I was still living on Kwaj. You see, I was only 22 when I moved to the
atoll, and I certainly didn’t feel like an adult at that time nor did I know
how to act like one yet, and before that, I was basically only a child in my
parent’s home (except for the 2 ½ years I was in a college dorm, sorority
house, and my own tiny apartment). Since
Kwaj is really like an adult version of high school in many ways and also one
of the safest and smallest communities in the world (by my estimation), I
didn’t really have to become a full-on responsible adult until I moved back to
the states in 2014.
On the
island, there were no bills to pay (except for groceries and phone), no traffic
to deal with (except for the occasional 4 high schoolers bicycling side by side
across the road who have no idea that there might be people behind them wanting
to pass and are unable to because of them), no tight schedules for the adults
or kids (children can ride their bikes to sports events, outdoor movie nights,
school functions, etc…on their own, so no chauffeuring is necessary on the
parent’s part), and there’s an abundance of free time (with no restaurants,
malls, resorts, etc.. ) and only a beach and the ocean with which to fill up
that time, so it’s a lot like being a kid with a job. J
Needless to
say, life on Kwaj, at times, did not really feel like the “real world.” When we started to prepare to leave that
life, all the “responsibilities” of living in the states began to really settle
in on me. We’re going to have a
mortgage, car and house insurance, cell phone bills, electric, water, garbage,
and grocery bills. We will probably have longish commutes to work (certainly
longer than my 5 minute bike ride on Kwaj), and we will have to drive our son
to all his school and sports functions.
AND I will have a job in a place where I don’t know anyone or their
history or the base history or who to call or e-mail when I need to have
something taken care of. It won’t be familiar to me. It will be all-new, and I will be the newbie.
This was to be my test…could I handle working for a military child care
organization at a mega-base in the US where no one would know my work ethic or
history or what I could do? I would have
to work my way back up to a position of respect, show that I really am an adult
who knows what I am doing in my chosen career field. I felt like an adult ONLY in the sense that I
knew I would have to ACT like one with full adult responsibilities. Did it work? So far, it’s been truly okay.
Turns out, I
was an adult on Kwaj, but it took a decade and a half to get there or maybe a
little less. Turns out, Kwaj was the
real world, just a simpler, more relaxed version of it. And how’s life in the real world? Not bad, not bad at all. People are basically
the same wherever you go, and I’ve been lucky enough to land an “adult job” in
a place with some really wonderful people, just like I worked with on
Kwajalein. To my co-workers on the base
who read this blog, thanks for making my foray into the “real” world of WA such
an easy transition.
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