Milspouse Rebel: Mail Room Edition

Daring the skies to open up on me today was the most fun I have had checking the mail, possibly ever. I knew it was going to rain. Didn’t have to be a genius to figure that one out based on the sky and the fact that it’s the rainy season—ahem, rainy half of the year—here in Okinawa.

I stood in my closet and picked out appropriate clothing.

To check the mail?

Yes.

Is this girl really writing about checking the mail? Like there is something to say about that?

Yes. Yes, I am.

Checking the mail is a bit more than walking from our front door to the mailbox or even the collection of mailboxes you might see around townhouse or apartment neighborhoods.

It so happens that our mailbox is inside of a mail room, inside of an official building, on a military base. Not even the military base we live on, but a different one, and not even a post office building, but an official building with offices and such. They do more than just mail inside that building, I guess. I mean I really don’t know what they’re doing over there in that building or any building on base, but I live here, and I walk around and try my best to function in a somewhat appropriate manner.

Most days.

Today, though, after I picked out the appropriate clothes in my closet, I thought about how I knew it was going to pour. I knew I should wear shorts that were not athletic shorts (or even better, pants), a belt, probably closed-toed shoes, and a shirt that wasn’t ratty and had sleeves.

Really, it was the belt that made me want to rebel. I own two belts, and for whatever reason, I decided if I got one of them soaked, it might end up moldy because, um, well, it’s very hard for things to dry completely here. Maybe my good friend humidity is smirking at these words.

So, I went for it and decided, if I was going to go to military wife jail, today could be the day. It’s cool—if I go to jail, I go to jail.

Well, now. Nobody is going to actual jail, or a probably (probably?) fictitious military wife jail over dress code, but I made my choice and knew that maybe I could probably get in trouble for it.

I wore running shorts, a tank top shirt of the same color, and flip flops—the original Florida-girl rain boots. I didn’t carry an umbrella or wear either of my raincoats. Goodness, I didn’t even want to wear any version of hearing aids, but it’s probably best if you can hear the people kicking you out of somewhere if you so happen to get kicked out of somewhere for your irresponsible clothing choices.

It was great.

I felt like myself—the real me—at a comfort level associated with being out and about around any other home neighborhood.

I felt like the same girl who grew up in Florida and never let the rain affect what I was or was not doing. Camping? Swimming? Running? Walking around my neighborhood? Working bus duty at school? Sure. I’ve done them all, and many more, in pouring rain, and those were the more memorable times. So, today, I welcomed the rain in hopes of a nice, memorable, checking-the-mail adventure.

I sure got one.

For the record, nobody said anything about my attire, and I didn’t go to jail.

I did, however, walk more than 5,500 steps and close to an hour to check our mail. You might think that sentence alone would be enough to convince us to own more than one car, but today’s mail trip was perfect and absolutely what I needed.

First, I got to feel, oh, so rebellious wearing my workout clothes outside of the gym. My walking can be a workout, right? I think so. Second, I checked our mail—a seemingly regular, don’t-even-think-twice-about-it kind of task, but…for most folks, it doesn’t take an hour to check the mail, so I count it as actually doing something.

Last, and best of all, I was offered a ride. Twice! Let me just say, I think my husband’s friends are the nicest and the best.

The ridiculous amount of time it’s been since I’ve seen the few familiar faces or talked to friends that I know on this island is too much to even try to measure. Thanks, COVID-19.

But, today, I got to talk to two of them because of the rain, because of the trip to check the mail, because somebody somewhere knew I needed those small snippets of interaction.

I’m so happy to have checked the mail today. Maybe I should break dress code and play in the rain more often to see what other happy coincidences I happen upon.