Greg had a pretty big meltdown last night. I'm hoping it was partially due to him being tired from working an evening shift (til after 11pm) and then a day shift (starting at 5:45am) back to back. I think he was pretty tired and a bunch of stuff just came bubbling up to the surface. I know when I'm tired, I'm a lot more likely to be crabby and meltdown. He called his parents to talk about us going out to Chicago in a couple weeks to see them, his sister, and his grandma. Greg's grandma is turning 99 years old! Pretty crazy! The funny thing is that she's still pretty with it. She stills DRIVES, lives by herself, cooks, etc... That's nuts, isn't it?
I digress. Anyway, he called them to discuss the plan for us coming out there so we could book plane tickets, but hadn't talked to them in a week or so, and ended up catching them up about Bosco dying, the latest on CAL not calling back the furloughs this year, and other depressing stuff. By the time he got off the phone he was pretty upset from bringing it all up.
I think he's really feeling lost in what to do with himself. The news of CAL not being likely to recall the furloughs this year is actually really frustrating. It kind of sets us back to square one all over again, because AGAIN we don't know when he will be recalled and what to do. Do we wait it out and he just keeps working at the hotel? Does he go to back for more school? Does he focus on finding other flying jobs? Does he focus on finding non-aviation jobs? It's just hard to know how to proceed....
I was talking to a friend about it all earlier and when you go through the scenarios of what to do, it's really difficult to figure out a game plan that makes sense. For example, if Greg were to go to grad school. What would he get a masters in? What if he gets recalled while he's in school? Would a masters actually help him in getting a better job (it seems like most jobs want the degree AND experience)? I'd hate to see him put in a lot of effort and money to study something only to have it not help him in getting a better job or for him to get recalled in the middle of going to school and him having to just stop. We can't really afford for him to be paying a lot in tuition either and he probably couldn't do school full time since we need an income from him. Same deal basically with getting some kind of two-year technical degree, which is something else we've considered for him. The advantage of him getting his real estate and CDL licenses were that the training was short and cheap and could be applied immediately.
Another big issue lately (I may have brought this up before), is that many the flying jobs Greg is seeing and applying for list being current or CFI (certified flight instructor). Greg hasn't flown a plane in a year and a half and hasn't been CFI certified in a while. Is it worth it to try and get those things up to date? Would it help? To get current in the jets he has flown would cost thousands of dollars, and same probably goes for CFI. Ideally he'd just get called back or hired somewhere where it's not an issue and they'd retrain him. But we wonder if he's losing out to jobs by having been out of flying for so long now if he's competing with guys that are current on all of that.
There's just not a clear solution to this problem. Whatever he direction he chooses is a gamble based on not knowing when he'll be recalled.
I again feel lost at how to really help him. I just try to be there for him and be supportive, find jobs for him to apply for, network for him when I can, toss out ideas when I come up with them... Other than that, I don't know what else to do. I don't know what I would do in his situation. It's hard to know if he should hold out or move on or what. I feel like the decisions that he's made thus far have been relatively good ones based on the information and choices he had at the time, so I don't think he really could have done much differently. I love him and I'm proud of him. I just hope he can figure out a solution that will make him feel like he's ok with things. He needs some sort of resolution, because I think this in limbo feeling is starting to just be too much for him to take anymore.
Despite everything I've still got my weirdly optimistic 2010 attitude. I'm not sure why, since everything is still pretty crappy and we haven't exactly gotten any good news lately, but I think I took a look back on how 2009 went and felt like I spent enough time feeling down and whiny in 2009, and don't feel like going about it that way any longer. Plus, I feel like things SHOULD only get better. I don't know. I just want to try and stay positive despite everything. The way I look at it, the constructive energy should help a lot more than negativity.