My first flight lesson

My first ever flight lesson was yesterday at 12:30pm. I was really nervous because I had no idea what to expect of the people or the school I was going through. It’s a relatively small school next to the air field. It’s privately organized by a group of men who either were veterans or sons of veterans. My instructor funded his flight education through the GI bill because his dad was an airplane mechanic for the military and these men founded this school because they felt like everything else offered was done so at way too high a price and they believe it shouldn’t be financially crippling for someone to learn how to fly. What a great way to start!

I cannot even put into proper words how amazing this experience was. It was so much more than I expected. So much more than I had dared to hope for. My need to fly an airplane before I’d ever actually done it, and the passion it instantly turned into after I landed the plane are so exponentially different that I don’t think there’s really a way to measure it. All I can think about now is what it’s going to be like when I’m up there by myself, with no one else, flying alone with my own wings. It’s such a deep seated need that it constricts my chest and makes it hard to breathe.

It’s so strange. I know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I know what I want to be. I don’t care how much it’s going to cost or how long it might take me.

I was always afraid that I would never feel like this about a possible career opportunity. I’ve never loved anything else I’ve tried or been good at, mostly I would just do them because I was good at it and not because I had any real passion for it. I always wondered if maybe there was something wrong with me, like maybe I was incapable of really loving anything I did.

It’s strange and wonderful to be proved so absolutely wrong. A weird ongoing sense of euphoria because I have this new purpose. I have a real goal that I am truly passionate about. It’s going to be difficult, and the prospect of doing it is so daunting, and there’s so much to learn, but the surety I feel that this is what I was meant to do is so profoundly solid that none of it makes any difference.

I am so extremely happy right now.