Dodging a Bullet

Sorry, it’s been a while...

Every once in a while something happens to help you realize you made the right decision. I think life has a way of showing you how you dodged a bullet. Just before the holidays, we were reminded that we made the right choice.

As previously mentioned, we are moving in April. The location is not my favorite, but I don’t think any base will ever quite compare to the one we’re currently at. The new base is not the worst location, but it’s not the best, either. I love the town we live in, and I will be sad when we move, but I’m starting to feel a little better about it.

Shortly after my husband had committed to this new assignment, the pilot who arrived here a few weeks after him and has the exact same training and qualifications was selected as a non-volunteer to a base in Oklahoma. Meaning this pilot is being forced to move as an instructor. Basically if my husband hadn’t taken this assignment, he would have been next in line.  

If you know me well, you know that I really did not care for living in Oklahoma. Nothing personal to the people of that state, I just was so not a fan of the 2 pilot training base locations. (Oklahoma City was very nice, but it was a few hours away.)

Both pilot training locations are in very small towns. I have nothing against a small town, in fact, our next base will be in a small town (and we actually live in a small town outside of a larger city), but Oklahoma was my own personal form of torture. It was just miles of nothing. I’m a pretty cheerful person, but I was miserable there. Even my happy-go-lucky husband described it as “Grapes of Wrath depressing.”

I think a major part of that stems from the fact that it rained for 20 days straight when we lived there. I am talking non-stop rain for nearly a month. Where I am from, it rains every afternoon in the summer, but then it stops. This Florida girl needs to see the sun once in a while, so I don’t go crazy!

Also,I was a theatre kid, but listening to people sing Oklahoma! to me while I was stuck there stopped being amusing real fast.

I can’t say I’ve ever experienced real depression in my life, but I wasn’t in a good place when we lived in Oklahoma. It wasn’t for long, but being so far from family, friends, and the ocean combined with no sunshine, was not a good mix for me. I was certain, at the time, that this was the circle that Dante forgot.

I’m hopeful that the next assignment will be good, but no matter what, I will try to remember: “We’re together and it’s not Oklahoma.”