Taking Time For A Win
We will move on to talking about dreams during the deployment stage next week. Since I used this space to vent last week, I wanted to share the other side of that this week. My husband called me today to tell me that we got a RIP (stands for relief in place, which gives zero clarity to what it actually means, but it is the precursor to orders) to Warner-Robins AFB in Georgia! This is the news we were waiting for and exactly the news we wanted to hear.
While we would have been happy with almost any of the move options, Georgia puts us closest to family, which will be amazing. We will be within six hours of most of my family and five hours of most of my husband's family. We won't have to take leave to see them, which will be fabulous since we are constantly scraping the bottom of the leave-barrel at our current station. We will be able to use that extra time and the money we save on flights to go on trips we have wanted to do for a long time.
In other great news, some of our closest friends will also be moving there. Many of our very close friends will still be scattered across the country (and the world for a few of them), but we will have the extra time and money to visit. Our friends moving away has only made our community feel bigger, not smaller. And the longer I am part of the Air Force family, the more I realize how small it is. I am confident that the friends we say goodbye to at this duty station we will undoubtedly see again down the road.
This news still came three weeks later than it should have. My frustrations were still valid. And everything worked out exactly the way we wanted. All of that can be true at once. As much as I wanted to be closer to family, my husband wanted to work on a ground assignment for his job. This is all around an excellent move for us, and I am already getting way too attached to houses on Zillow.
This is a dream come true. We did not think getting this close to family in my husband's career would be possible. For his job, we could be stationed at a very limited number of bases, and all except one were far away from the east coast (but even Tyndall Air Force Base would be eight-plus hours from family).
When Robins became an option, I was confident we would get it. We had a lot in our favor. The plane my husband flies on is divesting, which means they need to find new jobs for people. The base in Georgia is kind of in the middle of nowhere, and there really weren't many people who actively wanted it. It was our second time on the VML (which stands for vulnerable to move list, which I consider another bad military acronym. I mean, seriously, why was "vulnerable" the word they went with?). My husband's squadron will be just leaving their deployment window, which means it will be another year before they are slotted for anything, so it is the perfect time to move people.
Regardless of all those facts, though, I knew that we were going to get orders to Robins (I know we technically haven't gotten orders yet, but I am very confident that they are coming) for the simple fact that I am lucky and I usually get what I want. Now I wasn't sure enough to start packing and purging my house before the time came, but I never wavered on the fact that we would be moving.
I know I've talked about being lucky before; I don't really know if luck is an inherent gift someone has or if it can be cultivated. If we had a choice, I think we would all choose to be lucky, but I know it isn't that easy. Maybe it comes down to a pessimistic versus optimistic look on life. I am optimistic, and I usually am right. But when things don't work out, I remain optimistic. I just reframe my belief that maybe I didn't want that thing to begin with, or I didn't want it right now. I know that's a little delusional, and it may not be the healthiest way to deal with myself, but it works for me.
At the same time, I usually get what I want. Part of this is attributed to the fact that I married a man who generally says "yes" to me. But also, the things I care about and the things he cares about are very different. So it is a lot easier for us to say yes to one another because we didn't have a horse in the race to begin with.
For example, we have started to look at houses for our next duty station. I know that any place I find right now probably won't be on the market when we are actually ready to purchase in a few months. Still, I like getting an idea of what is out there, and there's always a chance that something amazing will stay on the market (without any significant hidden faults). But as we look for houses, my husband's biggest concerns are space to garden, proximity to work, not having neighbors in our backyard and that it is within our budget. I have much more detailed requirements (many the same as his), and as long as a house fits his "must-haves," he really couldn't care less what color the kitchen is painted (I'm seeing a lot of red dining rooms that I will definitely be repainting).
I've used this space to vent and will continue to do so, but I also wanted to share the joy. This is a dream come true. We are getting a duty station that wasn't really an option until this cycle. We are moving at the perfect time to keep our trips to Ireland and Punta Cana on the books. We will be closer to family. And I get to decorate a new house while getting more of the non-negotiables I didn't know I had until after we moved into our current home.
Our dreams will constantly change and grow. We will achieve dreams and discover bigger and newer versions of those same dreams to pursue. We will chase dreams and realize they weren't what we actually wanted. We will go after our dreams and find that it is even better than we imagined. As much as I get frustrated and angry with life in the military, this same life is making multiple dreams come true over the next few months. I hope the same is true for you, and if it's not, continue to hold out hope because I believe you'll get lucky.