A new decade.
Hola from Madrid! I’ve taken a week off from, well, life. To celebrate my 40th, to catch up with family, to have a few days by myself, to have a few days with my husband (who just joined me), to think, read, process, and write. Oh, and walk, eat, sleep… and eat some more. It’s already going by too fast.
I haven’t had much time to reflect lately. And by “lately,” I mean the last five years. That’s what having small children will do to you. It’s why I appreciate blogging, even if I don’t hit my goal of two posts a month (when was the last time I did that?!) and a podcast more than semiannually. I’ll get back into that, I promise. Writing has always been a medium for me to dig down, sort out, remember, and forget. It’s creative. It’s therapy. It’s art. It’s cathartic. It’s cathartic creative art therapy? Yes. So, I write.
For the past twenty years – my god, I’m actually writing that – I’ve had this backburner dream of writing a book. Not essays to be published online or in print, not poems in high school, not even a self-published novel. A book, and probably about me. That sounds super vain, I know, but it’s true. Even as a midshipman in NROTC, a college sophomore taking my first Creative Writing elective, a seasoned teenager on the brink of adulthood, I thought my life was interesting. We all do. Humans love ourselves. And I made a promise to myself to write it all down so that I could be published one day.
As military life overtook my free time, especially the grind of officer training, flight school, and squadron qualifications, I found that desire only increased. Sure, I wrote in the military, and though there was an element or two of creativity (my Taxiing Emergency Procedure parody in VTs, that Letter of Instruction for my first kangaroo court, even legitimate award write-ups), it wasn’t the same. I felt stifled, caged. Sure, journals and emails offered an outlet – and I wrote tens of thousands of words on both deployments – but I knew it was a temporary fix. I knew that in order to fulfill my long-burning desire to write a book, I’d have to quit full-time military service. Or at least take a big break. So, I did.
Those of you who know me know I left Active Duty in 2015 after much contemplation about my life, my career, and my goals. I felt burned out in ways I hadn’t imagined, unfulfilled in some aspects, bored in others. I enjoyed the paycheck, the majority of the people I worked with, and a sense of purpose larger than myself, but I resented micromanagement when I saw it, the seemingly lopsided nature of who got flight hours and who did not, unnecessary duty shifts and morning meetings (only the unnecessary ones, mind you), and the uphill battle that was the legal justice system. I was a senior Captain with nine years in and I was ready for a change. But I wasn’t sure I wanted out-out. I thought the Reserves might offer me a good route to keep one foot in the door without feeling like I had wasted my time on Active Duty, so I tried that. Blindly, I might add. There is more information online now about Reserve opportunities than there ever was, and that’s a great thing, but I found myself stumbling in the dark looking for answers. Namely, how the hell do I get a job in the Reserves as an expat living in England who’s been transferred to the IRR?
I spent over three years in the IRR. I learned a lot along that journey, about both myself and the Reserves. I quickly realized that the “one weekend a month, two weeks a year” thing was not available to me as an OCONUS Marine. Or, more specifically, not if I didn’t want to pay for a flight to the States every month. Numerous “short tour” opportunities were advertised, normally for 6 or 12 months, but I firmly said no. I was newly married, newly free of my Active Duty schedule, and I desperately didn’t want to go back to being burned out. It was hard saying no. I wasn’t sure if I’d get another chance. I wasn’t sure if there was anything out there that would fit with my new goals. I knew I wanted to be part-time, that I was consciously trading money for time, and even that my retirement would be something completely different. I also didn’t want to give up the Marines. But when I found myself still without a billet two years in, I grew disheartened. I contemplated switching branches. I contemplated going the GS route. My sister tried to persuade me to apply for one of the numerous three-letter-acronym government jobs. I didn’t want to trade one government job, and one where I at least knew that devil, for one completely new to me. I also felt finding a job in England wasn’t what I wanted right then.
Enter grad school. I’ve always loved school. I like good teachers, I like good lecture halls, I even like good homework. I had the whole Post-9/11 GI Bill at my fingertips (the hubs said, naw, he didn’t need it) and the world was my oyster. I had researched creative writing graduate programs at the end of Active Duty, when I thought it might be possible to go that route at some point, even as a night student. I knew the military encouraged getting a masters, any masters, especially for promotion to Major and Lieutenant Colonel, and I had just finished EWS, the company-grade professional military education requirement. I was ready to study something squishy, fruity, nutty, and a bit flakey. In short, I was ready to write again. My way. I desperately wanted to go full-time as an ass-in-seat resident student, spending two years wearing chunky sweaters made of organic cat hair and consuming hand-ground Peruvian coffee while discussing the merits of writing in the second person point of view, but I also thought it would be a shitty way to start a marriage. Especially as our two-year courtship and engagement had been largely international.
After a few weeks moping about this twist of events, I found a thing called a low-residency program. In essence, the same master’s program, but with most of the semester working from home (before that became popular in the pandemic). The “lecture” portion of class would be grouped into two condensed residency trips to the school; in my case, 8-9 days each. I agonized over which school I wanted to apply to and why. I wasn’t sure if my writing was good enough (and what would I submit as my writing sample?), but I wanted a good masters experience. I looked at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, The New School, Arizona State University, my alma mater in Madison, and even Oxford, Bath Spa, and St. Andrews in the UK. I wanted the validation of going to a recognized school, but most of them didn’t have a low-res option. Some were on the wrong rotation (poetry year, not prose). Some I thought I wouldn’t get into and didn’t want to wait for a rejection letter before being able to apply to somewhere else. Of course, it all worked out when I discovered a little place in Vermont called Goddard College. The rest, as you know, is history.
Onto my birthday. As I got more into the writing/author lifestyle – and yes, I finally ended up finding a Reserve route (IMA) that fit nicely with this new me – I began to think the only way to get noticed was to publish a book by the time I was 40. There were always “40 Under 40” book reviews or articles or interviews; it’s what all the talk was about. Crucially, as I was becoming increasingly salty and wise in the Corps, I was still considered young in writing circles. Hot damn! It’s nice to be the new kid again. And so I harbored a goal to have a book, my memoir, published by the time I turned 40.
We all know that hasn’t happened.
I was bummed when it became apparent I was not going to hit my birthday goal. I thought my master’s thesis was going to be a book upon graduation in early 2018. It was not. But it did prove to be the backbone of what has now become my memoir. This blog is an extension of that literary playground – my space to explore, improvise, experiment, and change. I can think of missing my goal as a failure or I can think of missing my goal as a success. The failure is obvious. But the success… Turns out, I have written a book by the time I turned 40. I’ve also held down a Reserve job, gotten promoted (twice), faced legal challenges and mental health dips, had two kids (and one miscarriage), held down the fort when my husband was deployed or away for work, written and published numerous nonfiction essays and articles, created a blog, created a podcast, been awarded a significant grant to further my professional writing, and, oh yeah, I’ve got a book contract with a traditional publisher. All before my birthday.
I’ve got a long year ahead of me with revisions, edits, publication deadlines, and marketing madness, but this big-w Writing ball has been set in motion. Publishing a book will open doors for me. It will give my title as “Author” more credit. Personally, I’ll feel like an actual writer, not this I-kind-of-write writer. My goal now is to make sure the book that’s published is the best version of the story I’ve had in my head over the past twenty years.
SABER 27: A Memoir is due for publication with Pen and Sword Books (UK) in Spring 2025.
Stay tuned.
Captain Leatherneck 