We never imagined being married and away from everyone we knew. But, when reality set in, it served as a quick reminder of how much work goes in to finding solid friends. We might not have known what to expect, but you better believe we quickly learned how incredible military friendship is.
The Friendship Struggle
It wasn’t easy. The combination of our husband’s work schedule and being new to the area led to loneliness. We were leaning heavily on very, very long FaceTime dates with family and friends from home. All while trying to make the most of Bumble for friends or spouse socials, but having no luck. We were both beginning to question our ability to find that deep sense of connection and support we needed locally.
How We Met
We had both been at McChord Air Force Base for 4 months when Kirstin’s husband reached out to Jen’s husband to get everyone together for a baseball game. Looking back it was such a blessing to connect through our guys and their established friendship. This has made for some really fun adventures over the years.
Neither of us remember any of the game because we spent the entire time talking and getting to know each other. It was great, but life got busy! It wasn’t until a few months later, while Jen’s husband was deployed, that we reconnected and our friendship took off.
Our guys ended up deploying back to back, with Jen’s husband coming home just as Kirstin’s left, so we had a lot of time to spend together and explore the new, exciting area we had both ended up in!
The Value of Military Friendship
In the brief 2 years we had together at McChord Air Force base, we were inseparable. We skied together (a first for Kirst), took roadtrips to explore new cities (Jen even flew out to Syracuse, NY to do Kirstin’s hair and makeup for her wedding!), had lots of sleepovers (featuring cookie logs and trash TV), and third wheeled quite a few dinner dates with our patient husbands.
Military friendship is fast and fierce. You form deep bonds and those friends quickly become family.
As military life goes, we were eventually moving on to different assignments apart from each other. Those “see you laters” were heartbreaking, but now years later a lot more bearable. We are proof that time and distance are no match for military friendship.
Our unexpected friendship has led to this space and community full of incredible military significant others. If you want to learn more about Wives of the Air Force and how it came to be you can read more HERE.
If you’re curious to learn more about us head over to Instagram and give us a follow. We hold that space to share more about how being an active duty family impacts our personal day to day! You’ll also hear about our retail therapy habits, boxed wine obsession and passion for supporting military spouses worldwide.
