The Last Thing on My Mind

As the engines of my Lufthansa flight hum above the clouds, I come to the end of my first R&R leave that marks my first anniversary in Kazakhstan.  One year down, two to go.  When I arrived in Astana at the end of September a year ago, it snowed in my first week. I left the US in summer and arrived in Kazakhstan to an early winter. In the process I missed autumn.  Will it be the same this year?

This has been a transformational R&R.  For the first time post-divorce and after other life changes, I can feel the ground shifting again.  I've described the past five years as the happiest in my life.  That has not changed, but something is different.  It's too early to know where this will take me, and perhaps it's too early even to write.  At the same time, perhaps through writing I will give form to the feelings that have accumulated over the past month and that are now flowing over.

I had a boyfriend.  It's past-tense now.  We met at a speed dating event in September 2013.  It was near the start of my magical year in Washington.  We clicked and quickly became an item.  QJ was divorced with two grown children. We liked the same movies and much of the same music.  I never met someone who likes to walk as much as I do, but in QJ I found my equal.  We walked everywhere.  In New York City we walked all the way from the Cloisters to the Brooklyn Bridge and across the East River.  That's how much we liked to walk.

Within weeks of our meeting, I had stopped looking for other relationships.  We were each others steady date with QJ frequently picking me up after work even when that meant meeting me at 11pm at the end of an evening shift.  One of our early dates was a midnight dinner.  He spent his weekends with me, and I settled into the simple domestic joys of cooking dinners and breakfasts.  We would watch The Bob Newhart Show and other old TV shows together.

When I left for Kazakhstan a year ago, QJ wrote to me almost daily.  His messages were never longer than a few lines, but they were regular.  As work consumed me, I came to look for those daily messages and would write back by the paragraph.  I kept expecting that he would get a passport and that he would come to visit or that we would meet somewhere in Europe.

But the months went by, and he never came.  By spring I sensed that something had changed.  The messages weren't daily anymore.  When I started making R&R leave plans, he said he would not be able to join me in Maine because of work and sick parents.  I felt there was something else he was not telling me, but it was just a feeling.

At Ease in Ocean City

QJ met me at the airport in Washington, and a few days later we went to Ocean City for a long weekend.  That weekend banished all fears and suspicions from my mind.  Long walks along the boardwalk and along the ocean brought me back to the year we had spent together.  When we returned to Washington after that weekend, I was completely at ease.

I was therefore shocked when he called the next day to tell me I had changed and that he had not recognized me during our Ocean City weekend.  “Cutting to the chase,” as he liked to say, he ended our relationship.  The entire conversation lasted less than two minutes.  I was in shock, intellectually comprehending but not yet feeling what had happened.  The emotions kicked in only a day later, and for the next two weeks I alternated between crying and cursing fits.  QJ sent me a check for less than half of the expenses for our New York plans that were too late to cancel without penalty, which only added to the sense of injury.

It is a truism that the Foreign Service (FS) is hard on relationships.  I quip that embassy communities are divided into four groups.  Married couples with children organize their social lives around school events and play dates.  Younger singles are busy finding each other and local partners.  Older divorced or single men often chase local skirts.  And older divorced women go home to feed their cats.  The odds of a relationship such as the one I had with QJ surviving when one half of the partnership goes to the other side of the world are long.  As angry as I've been, I must acknowledge that my profession is a cruel one.  Can I fault QJ if he met someone else while I was away?  Our commitment to each other had never been spelled out.  Could I blame him?  Not really.

The score is now FS one, Robyn zero.

And then there is my granddaughter.   She was born one week before my departure for Kazakhstan a year ago.  I was there for her birth, and now I was in the US again just in time to see her taking her first steps.  I've been sending handwritten letters to her over the past year so that there will be a collection she can look at one day to know what her grandmother was doing when she was a baby.   Thanks to Skype, she seemed to recognize me or at least my voice.  I was not entirely a stranger, although even at a year's age her eyes seemed filled with questions when she looked at me.  And then the R&R was over; I was on my way again.

That's two for the FS, zero for Robyn.

I'm the youngest in my family.  My sisters visited me when I served my first overseas tour in Moscow, and my son spent several summer and winter vacations with me when he was still in the university.  Two of my sisters are now in their 70s and, as much as they love me, they are not going to travel to the steppes of distant Kazakhstan to visit.  My son is now the father of a one-year old daughter.  He's not going to visit either.

That's three for the FS, zero for Robyn.

Then there's my emotionally adopted daughter PE in Bucharest.  I got to visit her for several days on my way to the US, and those number among the brightest days of my R&R.  But then I was on my way.  Life in the FS means we're always saying goodbye.

That's four for the FS, zero for Robyn.

Day Hiking in Katahdin Woods

After a week in Maine grieving for the loss of my relationship with QJ, I took action.  I joined a Meetup group hike in Katahdin Woods.  It was led by a couple in their 70s and 80s, and I learned that the woman leader had completed her through hike of the Appalachian Trail only two years ago.  That's still a life goal of mine, and her example is an inspiration.  I remained for a post-hike star party, borrowing a tent and sleeping bag so that I could spend the night.  There was a campfire with campfire talks before the start of the star party, and one of the speakers began not with words but with Tom Paxton's Last Thing on My Mind as he played the ukulele.  He brought tears to my eyes, but the scene of a beautiful campfire under a beautiful sky changed something.  Those were the first tears of healing.  I spoke with the ukulele player afterward, and something clicked.  We exchanged telephone numbers, but with only days left before the end of my R&R, we did not manage to get together.  We promised each other “next time."

That's five for the FS, zero for Robyn.

Canoeing on the Sebois River

Add to this the new women friends that I made that weekend.  Four of us spent three hours on Sunday in canoes and kayaks on the Sebois River.  Later in the week I met up with one of them for an afternoon of kayaking on the Passadumkeag River.  And then I had to say goodbye.

That's six for the FS, zero for Robyn.

Inside My Small Maine Home

My small home in Maine is beautiful.  The old camp that was on the property when I bought it in 2009 is gone, replaced by the small but modern home that my excellent builder NR finished last winter.  This was my first time living in it since it was completed.  With no more than about 600 square feet, it's tiny, but in my two weeks of living there I understood that it's all I'll ever need.  I own it for cash on 32 acres with beautiful sunsets through the branches of Norwegian pines.  Even the cloudy, rainy days are beautiful with the sound of the rain on my metal roof and a wood stove to keep me warm.  All that remains is for NR to build a garage.  I told him to make it big so that I can have the biggest yard sale that my small town has ever seen.  One day all I own that's with me overseas or in storage will be delivered to Maine, and that will be the time for a massive sell-off.  I believe in downsizing and a frugal lifestyle.  Ann LaBastille is my ideal even if I will never measure up to a quarter of her stature as a Woodswoman.  Let it all go.  I already have all I need in Maine.  Everything else other than photos and memories can go.

This morning I had tears in my eyes as I closed up my small home and drove off to Bangor.  I would like to stay in Maine now, not after my mandatory retirement in a bit under four years.

That's seven for the FS, zero for Robyn.

Finally, there's the past year in Kazakhstan.  It was a grueling year.  I doubt I ever worked less than 50 hours per week.  60 hours was the more likely norm.  Even so I could only barely keep up.  By March-April I had a vision of what I wanted to accomplish in this position that has me covering environmental, science, technology, and health (ESTH) issues throughout Central Asia.  My goal is a simple one:  restore this ESTH Hub to what it was before the emigration of our Scientific Affairs Specialist (SAS) in 2013.  A new SAS had been hired at a neighboring post, and I began working with her.  In July we sent out the first Hub newsletter in four years.  We had plans for other news products and reporting cables.

But there was a problem.  From conversations with others and from my own observations, I came to the belief that my SAS was being harassed in the workplace.  (I won't go into detail here in that there is an EEO process underway.)  By July I was not sleeping nights as the bulk of my attention shifted to saving my SAS.  All my energy went into her defense, but in the end my SAS could not take the stress and uncertainty.  She resigned.  With her departure, my own plans for this Hub are back to their starting place, and my faith in the FS has been shaken.

Make that ten for the FS -- the situation for my SAS looms large for me -- zero for Robyn.

But there is a bright point.  As my plane heads ever eastward, a young woman in Astana is opening my apartment and cooking a meal.  History repeats itself as I have another emotionally adopted daughter in Astana.  I care about her and what happens to her, and I know my presence in Astana has made a difference in her life.  Also, she cares about me and my health.  Sometimes she will stand in front of the Embassy late in the evening and call me to insist that it's time for me to come home.

So if it's ten for the FS, is it really zero for Robyn?  Is it just the end of R&R leave that weighs on me?  Many if not most of the personal changes in my life would not have been possible had I not joined the FS, and I have had many wonderful experiences, excellent colleagues, and opportunities to be involved in important work.  For some, I have become a symbol of what is possible for a person of my background.  Recalling that, I'd up my score to ten as well.  Ten for the FS and ten for Robyn.  Match.

But things do change.  I feel the call to return home ever more strongly.  I've seen and experienced much in Russia and the former Soviet Union (FSU).  Geographically, I've seen more of the FSU than I have of the United States.  I've had my say, in particular in my work on the history of science.  Add to that my work on Hubble for more than 15 years.  It's enough for a life's work.  Other than for my emotionally adopted daughters, everything and everyone I care about and love are on the other side of the world.  It's time to go home.

Why do I stay?  Money is one reason.  The salary I'm making in Central Asia is doing wonders to restore the retirement balance that had been devastated by divorce.  But how much to I really need?  I don't know, but an interim decision is starting to take form as I write.

If I'm to enjoy retirement, hike the AT, and do the other active things I want to do, I must preserve my health.  Starting now and until the time my faith in the FS has been restored in the form of a new SAS being hired, I will reduce my work hours to 40 hours per week.  I have nothing left to prove or achieve in this FS career, and I need the rest of the time to preserve my health and plan for the future.

On a Last Day in Maine in Baxter State Park

Then, instead of staying abroad for my last two years in the FS, why not return to the office where I worked in Washington in 2013-14?  I enjoyed the work there, and it was a job where when the shift was over, the work stayed in the office.  Also, since it was 6-days-on, 4-days-off, I had plenty of time for friends, family, volunteer work, and trips to Maine.  If I am able to live out of a suitcase with my sisters rather than renting an apartment, I should still be able to save significant retirement funds.   I can be near my granddaughter as she grows up, and I can connect with my new friends in Maine while preparing for that AT hike.  Maybe there will be more starry nights to the accompaniment of a ukulele and Tom Paxton songs?

That's the plan that's taking form as we wing ever eastward . . . and another life transition begins.

* * * * * * * * * *

Tom Paxton sings this as beautifully today as he did in the 1960s. For those of us in the FS, it's a song that could be on the mind of many a loved one at home in the US as we board our planes for overseas.