The hardest question transition asked me wasn’t what I was going to do next. It wasn’t about careers, retirement, finances, or where our family would land after military life. Those questions were challenging enough, but they weren’t the ones that stopped me in my tracks.
The question that left me staring into space was much simpler:
What do you want?
When I finally sat down and asked myself that question, I realized I had no idea how to answer it. Not because I lacked dreams or ambitions, but because I had spent so many years focused on everyone else’s wants and needs that I had stopped paying attention to my own.
For two decades, I knew exactly what was required of me. I knew what my husband needed to succeed in his military career. I knew what my children needed to thrive through moves, deployments, and constant transitions. I knew what had to happen to keep the household functioning, the schedules moving, and the emotional wheels from falling off the bus.
What I didn’t know anymore was what I wanted.
Looking back, that realization should have shocked me more than it did.
The truth is, I wasn’t always this way.
There is a scene in the movie Never Been Kissed that has stuck with me for years. Drew Barrymore’s character asks a teenage girl about her dreams, and the response comes pouring out with enthusiasm and possibility. The girl wants to be a professor of medieval literature, a novelist, a flautist, a painter, an architect. She wants to go places, become things, and experience life in all its fullness.
Every time I watch that scene, I laugh because it feels so familiar.
That was me.
Before military life, I wanted to do everything. I was the kid sneaking art supplies into school because there were never enough opportunities to create. I was the young woman who spent a week eating peanut butter so I could afford tickets to Austin City Limits. I loved trying new things, learning new skills, and imagining all the different versions of life that might be possible.
The world felt expansive.
Then military life happened.
Not in a dramatic, life-altering moment, but in a thousand small decisions that seemed completely reasonable at the time.
I postponed hobbies because there wasn’t enough time. I put creative pursuits on hold because other responsibilities felt more urgent. I delayed goals because deployments, moves, children, and family needs required immediate attention. Every decision made sense in the moment. Every sacrifice felt temporary.
The problem was that temporary became a lifestyle.
One deployment became another. One duty station became the next. One season of survival turned into years of adaptation. Before I knew it, I had accumulated twenty years of “maybe later.”
Maybe later I’ll take that class.
Maybe later I’ll travel.
Maybe later I’ll paint again.
Maybe later I’ll figure out what I want to do.
The military didn’t take those things from me. Life simply became so full of responsibilities that I stopped making room for them.
What I have come to realize is that the greatest loss wasn’t the missed opportunities themselves. The greater loss was losing touch with my own desires.
Military spouses become incredibly skilled at adaptation. We learn how to anticipate needs, solve problems, and keep things moving forward under difficult circumstances. We become experts at reading the room, managing schedules, and supporting the people we love.
The downside is that when you spend years focused on everyone else’s needs, you can slowly lose connection with your own.
I knew what everyone around me needed.
I knew who was struggling.
I knew who needed encouragement.
I knew who had an appointment next week and who had forgotten their homework assignment.
What I didn’t know was what excited me anymore.
Not what was productive.
Not what was practical.
Not what would benefit the family.
What actually interested me?
What made me curious?
What sounded fun?
Those questions felt surprisingly difficult to answer.
For a long time, wanting things didn’t feel selfish. It felt unrealistic. Every desire immediately ran into a wall of practical considerations. Where would I find the time? How would I afford it? Who would help carry everything else? Eventually, it felt easier to stop asking the question altogether.
The beginning of rebuilding came through curiosity.
I picked up a paintbrush again for the first time in years. I stepped onto a wrestling mat and immersed myself in combat sports, something I had always wanted to explore but never believed was practical. Neither decision made perfect sense on paper. Neither solved a major life problem.
But both reminded me of something important.
I am more than the roles I fill.
I am more than the responsibilities I carry.
I am a person with interests, passions, preferences, and desires of my own.
That may be one of the most difficult lessons of transition. Many of us spend years dreaming about freedom, believing it will arrive once the military chapter ends. We imagine that one day there will be enough time, enough money, enough margin, or enough support to finally focus on ourselves.
What I have learned is that freedom is not the absence of responsibility.
Freedom is giving yourself permission to become curious again.
It is allowing yourself to ask what you want without immediately dismissing the answer. It is remembering that your interests matter, your passions matter, and your life is worthy of investment too.
Military life taught me how to survive. It taught me grit, adaptability, and endurance. Those skills served me well.
But learning what I want is teaching me something entirely different.
It is teaching me how to live.
And if there is one question worth asking after years of putting everyone else first, it is this:
What do you want?
Not what makes sense.
Not what everyone else needs.
What do you want?
You may not have an answer right away. I certainly didn’t.
But asking the question is where the journey back to yourself begins.
Debrief complete.
Adjust accordingly.