Realization

Over lunch with a friend today, I realized something. I've been very ticked off about the whole prospect of Greg holding on to hope that he'll get called back. Well, I think I'm over that now, and I suddenly get it better. In my lunch conversation today, my friend asked why I thought Greg was holding on to this hope and not wanting to consider finding something else to do. Turns out, I understand why. I realized this as I defended and explained why he was holding on to hope and wanting to go back to flying, even though I myself have been complaining about this and asking him the same question. It's because becoming a pilot isn't like most other jobs people do as a career. At some point you choose to commit to it and put a lot of money, time, and commitment behind it. You choose to do it despite the fact that it will mean being away from home, a spouse, and a family. You choose to do it despite the fact that it will mean instability and possibly furlough or an airline going under (we've dealt with both). You do it even though you may end up moving to make life more livable or despite the fact that you may have to commute to your hub and spend additional time away because of this. You do it even though it will mean learning complicated things and having to go through difficult training both to learn new planes and go to recurrent training and sweat over whether you will pass. It's just not the kind of job that you roll over and decide to randomly do. I think any person that's chosen to become a pilot has weighed all of this and decided to make sacrifices to do the job, because it's what they really want to do. And my husband is great at the job. He's spent more than 15 years of his life doing the job. So to have all of that time and effort ripped from him has been hard, and it's understandable that he would want all of that to count for something and to get back to the totality of the life he chose. It's the kind of career that is a life style, not just a job. It's an identity because it consumes so much of your life. I get it now.