a letter to my dear friend...

A dear friend wrote me a letter about her recent disappointment with her husband being passed over for promotion again and I thought that I would share the letter that I wrote in reply...

Some things are harder to work through than others, trust me I know. We know someone out here that finally got promoted to Lt Col 3 years above the zone…so it can happen. The only word of advice I can truly give you is that you need to find a happy place in your heart and stay there. That’s what I did after that major let down last June. My heart was broken when we had that assignment to Hanscom AFB pulled out of our hands. My hopes and dreams of finally being near family were dashed to pieces and I had a hard time getting it together again. I cried for days afterwards. Then that assignment carrot was dangled in front of us again for the fall move cycle…again it was yanked out of our hands. And that’s when I said “skip this, enough is enough! I’m going to make myself truly miserable (and get an ulcer) if I give any more thought to getting out of here". So with many prayers being said asking the Lord to guide me in becoming happy with where I am... I found a happy place in my heart. I soon threw myself into the little things that made me happy. Baking cheesecakes for various charity functions and surprising friends with my cheesecakes for Christmas was another thing that gave me great joy. Scrapbooking those OSC events and getting back into counted cross stitching brought me even more joy. I actually found myself being happy being on the OSC board and attending every military function that I could. I’ve only missed attending one OSC function and that was because I was in Boston attending CKU-Masters! God handed me a bag of lemons and a bowl of sugar, what I do with the 2 are totally up to me. So as I figure it, I’m going to make the most of the two and have some ice cold lemonade while sitting on my front porch this summer with my best friend. What better way to make the best of a bad situation, I tell you I am not bitter about staying out here. I had accepted the fact that we were not going to be able to escape this place (just like the 7 years we spent at Dyess AFB). I’ve accepted the fact that once you get to a bomber base they are not letting you go! Now I’m so glad that I did not set myself up for being disappointed about us not getting to move out of state. Over the past couple of months I've let my husband know time and time again that I will not take the news of us staying here another 4 years as bad news. That I refuse to get myself worked up over something that I have no control over. With that right there I think I had him seeing the light…and that’s when he promised me that no matter what our news, that we will be moving out of this house. That was such a blessing for me to hear that coming out of my husbands’ mouth. I knew that I could make plans; I had something to look forward to and sometimes that’s all we Air Force wives need…something to look forward to. So here I am, getting ready to make an offer on a house. Tomorrow we’re meeting the realtor at the house with our kids... to look over the house once more. Then we will get with our realtor and make an offer on the house. I want to get this show on the road! I just want to get started on the house process as soon as possible. We’re going to hire professional movers to move all of our furniture and other belongings; well with exception of my scrapbook nook (Only I touch that stuff).

Okay I’m outta here…got to write in my blog ya know ;-)