Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The Dream Sheet...dream or depressing?

Ask anyone in the military and they can tell you about PCSing and dream sheets in quite some detail.  They can tell you that PCSing is a military way of saying 'moving' and that it happens every 4 years at the latest.  They can also tell you that the dream sheet is, essentially, a list of a service member's top choices of where to go next.  Even before I was a military wife, I experienced the dream sheet when we made our choice to come here to Wright-Patt.  F was emailed a list of places he could possibly go and we chose our top eight, with number one being our most desired pick.  The Air Force then tried to accommodate our desires and, as luck would have it, we ended up getting our top choice.  However, that doesn't always happen.
F still has three years here at Wright-Patt but we've already begun talking about the next PCS because it never hurts to start doing research early.  Also, F knows it's going to be a really big deal to me.  With the first dream sheet, F wanted to go to Patrick AFB in Florida.  I, on the other hand, wanted to stay near home.  So I voted for Wright-Patt.  F knew that moving away from my family was going to be really hard on me so he changed his top pick to be Wright-Patt for my sake.  I really appreciate this but I know he really wishes he could be at Patrick because that's what he wanted before me.  So I've been warming myself up to the idea of moving to Patrick in 3 years.  However, no matter how hard I try, I get really nervous about living somewhere with severe storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes all without a basement.  I already don't feel safe in my house here in Ohio because of the lack of basement, how is that really going to make me feel?  And I've found that I've been getting more homesick instead of less, so how will being too far to visit home often feel?  While I know we still have time, I can't help but feel all the emotion and nerves building up already.  Really, I just wish we could go home...

2 comments:

  1. Oh I hear ya. Moving from Michigan to South Dakota was hard because I had just been offered a dream job there. And just when I started to get comfortable in SD, found out I was moving to an island I never heard of and then the countdown to when we left again started only to have the PCS date change. It's such a crazy lifestyle, but the best advice I was given by another military wife was "bloom where you're planted." And I have seen how some military wives can make a home anywhere. I'm trying, but it's hard. But if anyone can make anywhere feel like home, you can.

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  2. And that, my dear, is the beauty of being a military wife. We face all of these challenges and what ifs, but the difference in our lives is that we meet them head on, sometimes knowing that we have no other choice is the only reason we're doing so.
    I am blessed to be stationed so close to family here at Offutt, but I also know that will change in the next 2 years--Germany appears to be on the dockett....it's an exciting, emotional wonderful roller coaster of adventure that we get to ride
    and while sometimes it's scary and a bummer, it's worth the trip :)

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