You know what is awesome about military retirement? We are nowhere near old enough to fit the profile of the typical retiree.
Young privates who check my military ID at the gate do a double take to look at the box marked : RET. I secretly say a silent 'thank you' to the universe for insuring that I do not yet look like a retiree caricature.
We have toddlers still not old enough for preschool. Other moms on the playground are jealous that as retirees, our schedules are no longer dictated by PCS, deployment or field exercises.
When many of our active duty neighbors head to work at o'dark thirty, we can roll over and wait for the much later alarm to ring in time for our kids to head to school.
And when snow and ice pelted our area, those in uniform still slogged their way onto base. We were allowed to huddle in our house with the rest of the community and wait for it all to melt.
Retiring young has perks.
Our kids are still kids. We have time to play with them. We still want to travel and explore and now we have time to do it. His career has been neatly tied up with a giant red ribbon which means after years of following him around and just sliding by, my career can take the lead. I get to decide where we move and what job I want, rather than take a job that is simply there. Meanwhile I will let him figure out school lunches.
But retiring young is also a problem.
We still have toddlers who need 18 years of schooling, new clothes, piano lesson and college.
We still have to work and earn substantial money, not just keep ourselves busy like many, much older retirees do. We have to work hard, probably for another 20 - 25 years to provide for our still very young family.
Our house is not our retirement home but merely our starter home which we are in the process of selling since it is officially too small. Our move to our new house is exhausting since that bill is paid by us now, not Uncle Sam.
I can't imagine that any job is as demanding as the military but our friends' jokes about enjoying the quiet, golfing retirement are getting old. We're retired from one job, not from working.
Retirement is nice. It is nice to be free from the red tape and the heart ache and difficulties that come with military life. But I am looking forward to actual retirement. When in 20 years, after we've done the best we can and our new careers come to a graceful close, we can actually stop working.
When we don't even have to set the alarm.
When we never have to move into a new house again.
When we can call our friends and ask if they want to go golfing, on a weekday afternoon.
Military retirement is nice, but real retirement, that is a day I am really looking forward to.
