Life is an Adventure. Embrace it! by Marsha Gardner Waltz

It was the 1960s, and I had graduated from college with a BSN; I had a job;  now I wanted an apartment! But my mother said, "No, you have to live at home until you get married. Just like your cousins!" Had my mother agreed, I probably would have been visiting more looking for a nice home-cooked meal! There was no point in arguing with my mother; I said nothing further.

At that time, only 25% of nursing graduates were BSN's, and I had graduated and was working in a hospital.  But the search for BSN's was on, and I was receiving recruitment brochures from each of the military branches and large hospitals. I realized that if I took an offer from a New York, Boston, or another big city hospital, that my parents would harangue me until I came home. But I also knew that they could not do anything to undo my enlistment with the military.

Remember 1968? Viet Nam? The TET Offensive? In the middle of that,  I came home one day and announced to my father and mother, "Meet Lt. Gardner United States Air Force!" My mother was furious and told my father, "Bob, do something!" and he said, "What can I do? She's twenty-two years old!  What can I do?" All of my other relatives thought I had lost my sanity or was taking something.

So off I went! And what I found was other women just like me. Many women still felt they had to be married; they needed a man for things like your car breaking down. They asked me what I would do if that happened to me, and I said, "Call AAA." I didn't need a man for such things, and in the military, I discovered other women just as gutsy as I was and believed this was an acceptable way of life.

Women nurses in WWII broke ground for my generation. During the second WW, nurses could not be married; or if they did, they had to leave the service. By my time, women could be married as long they didn't have kids. Now women can be married to a serviceman or not, and she can be sent to Afghanistan and leave the kids with her partner. Now we have women fighter pilots, and even though we didn't have that during my time, I am very proud because I know that I contributed to the advancement of women in the military, just as the women did during WWII.

When in the military, you are just transferred. You don't get to check out the Base or Post. You just went where you were transferred. Back in those days, there was a processing system, but rather than being sent to Viet Nam I was sent to a small Air Force hospital in England, where I served for two years. Next,  I was posted to a large military hospital in Germany for a year. I was very independent, and when I had three days off, I was out of the country exploring. After Germany, I was posted to the USAF Academy in Colorado Springs, and that was a plum job!

At each posting, I was enjoying my new freedom. When I was posted in Germany,  I worked the night shift, but I would go to the Officers' Club, drink Coke and dance away until 10:00PM, and then I would leave and change into my nurses uniform and go to work. Then there was San Francisco, which I loved. One time my friend and I decided to go out on the town in drag. I asked a doctor if I could borrow a shirt and tie, and as he gave them to me, he said, "I don't even want to know about this!" She did the same thing, and we were gone. To our disappointment, no one even looked at us! I knew that we would have caused a stir back home, but not in San Francisco. We also decided to try Chinese food, still not my favorite. We went to a little Chinese restaurant where I was determined to use chopsticks! We were the only non-Oriental people in the place, and the waiter patiently taught me how to use the chopsticks. There was more rice on the table than on my plate! Finally, I got rice in my mouth with the chopsticks, and when I looked around, everyone in the restaurant was watching, and they burst into applause! We got hamburgers on the way home. Of course, in 1968, you had to make a stop at Haight-Ashbury and, oh, the smell of marijuana!

One time I drove onto an airbase and wanted to see the helicopters and planes, so off I go. Soon the base police were at my side, questioning me as to what I wanted. I said, "I just wanted to look at these," and the policeman proceeded to let me climb in, over and under, to have a good look!

After leaving the military, it was easy to get nursing jobs,  but as I grew older, it became more difficult because of my age. The hospitals felt more senior nurses would have to retrained, and it was easier to hire nurses just out of school. For a time, I worked in Skilled Nursing Facilities and a psych hospital in a correctional facility.

So, how did I become the person I am today?  I am very different from my extended family. When I was born, we lived in a house full of relatives. I'm an only child, and when I was eight, we moved to what you would call a single-family dwelling, and my mother had a sister living on the next block, but she had significant issues. My mother and father both worked, and three days a week, my aunt on the next block was supposed to look after me but did not. On nice days, I would go over and play with her son, my cousin, in the yard, but I was never allowed in her house.  But if I had to go to the bathroom or wanted something to eat, I had to go to my house a block away.  So most of the time, while my parents worked, I stayed by myself. This experience taught me to entertain and to take care of myself. Looking back, my mother was one of nine children, and I could never understand why her sibs never took turns to watch out for me.

As I grew older, I was stepping farther and farther away from my family. I only had one female cousin who went to college, and everyone told my father, "why are you spending all that money on her? She is only going to get married and have children." But my father told me to go to school, and he hoped that one day I would marry, but you never knew. Between having to care for myself from eight years of age and my father encouraging me to go to school and get a skill, I became independent. He wanted more for me than working in a grocery store or a cafe.  These events led me to become independent. At times people ask me if I get lonely, and I'm not because I know how to entertain myself.

My parents would come to visit me when they had their yearly vacations, and they could see the changes in me, but I always shared more with my father than my mother. When I was at Travis Air Force Base in my 20's,  I bought a motorcycle from the Base chaplain and was riding it around without a license. My father was surprised that I had learned to drive a motorcycle. In my 30's I was in  Los Angeles and bought a moped and thought nothing of riding to work on it through the barrios in the city. When people asked if I was afraid, I said "no" they are probably saying she is just "a crazy gringa, and she must be nuts!" I never even thought about it.

My cousins and family still don't understand me. They are always wondering when I am coming back home.  But the reality is they have always been highly critical of my life and decisions. When I had to stop nursing, I had to go into my savings each month to get by, and my cousin's response was that it was my fault that I didn't have enough money because I moved around too much. So rather than ask how they might help me, it was criticism about my choices. But during this time, I was constantly looking for part-time work, with no benefits,  just twenty hours a week. Absolutely nothing turned up.

One Sunday in 2011, I bought a paper, and there was an extensive article about ex-pats, and I began doing my research. First on the list was a passport because when I was in the service, I only had to show my military ID.  As my plans progressed, my cousins continued to question what I was doing. I decided to move to Ecuador,  and I left the US in April 2012. Again, friends and family could not understand how I could move to a foreign country without checking it out first. My response was, "the military never asked if I wanted to go; much less go and "check it out."

As I was sitting on the plane on my way to Ecuador, thinking back over my life, it came to me that I had served my Country. I went to college and worked as long as I could, and there was nothing for me in the US. I flew from Florida to Ecuador without kind thoughts about my family or my Country.

I settled on Ecuador because it was supposed to be "eternal spring," but when I arrived, I realized they meant the first day of spring, and I am more of the last day of spring person. When I went out, I was bundled up for winter, and that just was not what I had hoped for. I knew people from Ecuador who had moved to Ajijic, and they encouraged me to move. They said the weather was very good, not as hot as the beaches or as cold as Ecuador. So I spent the next year planning and moved to Ajijic, sight unseen, and moved in the summer of 2017.

A friend of mine, who had lived in Ecuador and I had "met" through Facebook, lives in Mirasol, found this house for me, again sight unseen. All flights from Ecuador arrive in Guadalajara in the middle of the night, so I arrived in Ajijic at 1:00AM, and she met me at this house with the keys.