Just over a year ago, in August 2005, I turned to my boyfriend of 8 months and uttered those crazy words- "look, if you really want to be a pilot, then let's make it happen, otherwise, quit talking about it because I'm tired of hearing about it already." Once he got over the utter shock of what I had just said, we started making plans. It hasn't always been easy, but here we are, a year later, with him as a CFI working toward his lifelong dream.
The few months following that decision were hectic and unsettled at best. We decided that he should start the program in feb. 06, giving us 5 months to arrange financing, a cross country move, renting out a house, and numerous other details, along with maintaing our fledgling relationship. And people told me I was crazy, moving cross country with him, encouraging him to leave a well paying job to return to school, leaving my own job and family. But I knew in my heart that we could make this work. When someone holds onto a dream for so many years and then is finally give a chance to go after it, they will do whatever they can to attain it. Even he didn't believe that I was encouraging him to do this. No one ever had. I asked if he would have any qualms if I wanted us to move to Wyoming so I could follow my lifelong dream of studying sheep husbandry (I was searching for the most off the wall career I could think of) and he said no. Then I asked why he thought that I should be any less committed to his dream. That settled it.
In the ensuing rush we: failed to qualify for traditional financing so had to find a new creative method arranged an equity line of credit, found a rental agency to rent the house, notified our friends and family, negotiated for out of state child custody of my son, all moved in together to my house, sold all our belongings and bought new ones, make a weekend trip to FL to check out the school/find an apartment/find a preschool, rented a truck, loaded our belongings and drove 2500 miles (with a cat) to resettle, temporarily, in Jacksonville, FL. With a sigh of relief that we had managed everything, we settled in for him to start school in early Feb 06.
It's now been 6 full months and we are going strong. He attained all of his ratings: private pilot, commercial pilot, instrument pilot, flight instructor and aviation has thoroughly invaded most facets of our life. I tried my best to teach him to "leave it at the door" but in reality, most days it gets tracked in, the same what the humid FL air seeps in through the cracks in the door. But that's ok, we are all getting used to it. Currently, he's hired as an instructor and is working for phone center for the school waiting for an instuctor spot to open up.
I'm loving this taste of the 8-5 life once again, but I know it's not here to stay. Once he's instructing, it will be back to 24/7 on call for aviation. But to see how happy he is and to know how proud of him I am, all of the changes we had to make to get here seem worth it.
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