I was born a dreamer…

“All dreams start out small,

Sometimes you don’t know they’re there at all.

But I lay awake wishing on the stars,

All the while knowing in my heart.

I was born a dreamer,

A wide-eyed believer in things unseen.

I was born a dreamer,

Oh say you believe in me.”

Those lyrics are from one of my favorite songs of all time, “I Was Born a Dreamer” by Shel. And now more than ever I feel like those words ring so true.

I’ve always been a dreamer. As far back as I can remember, I’ve approached situations and ideas with the wide eyes, eagerness and often times naivety of a child. And to this day, nothing about that has changed.

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been having a recurring dream that I, myself, can fly. Now, as an adult, that notion and those dreams are even more meaningful, because I know that it will simply never happen. Sounds like a total “Debbie Downer” reason to call something “meaningful,” right? It’s not though.

I mean… I’ll never be able to hold my hands straight above my head and launch into the sky the way I do in my dreams—but that’s what makes the dream so special. I love going to bed each night and hoping and praying that I might be so lucky to take a flight in those dark, quiet hours I lay in my bed.

The other night, however, I had a somewhat strange variation of that decades-old dream. Please, hold your applause—I mean… laughter—till the end. I dreamt that I was none other than a queen. No, I wasn’t wearing a crown… I wasn’t sitting on a throne… not THAT kind of queen.

I was a big, beautiful Boeing 747 and I was very obviously flying due East over the Atlantic. I climbed and I continued to climb. I was working so hard to stay airborne—for some reason it felt like everything was working against me, like gravity was even stronger than it already is.

The weird thing is, I’ve felt like that in “real life” lately. I feel like I am something big and beautiful… like it’s my time to shine… my time to fly—but I’m working really hard to make sure I keep it that way without crashing down.

Four months into my new job, I still love it so, so much. That doesn’t mean, however, that it hasn’t been hard. Being in a new city is fun and scary, starting a new job is exciting and stressful, and living alone is liberating and depressing.

I’m starting to think that the poor TSA folks at MSP think I’m completely bananas, as I usually show up with tears streaming down my face. It is really hard to bid farewell to my partner in crime and it never gets easier—never.

Lucky for me, Scott was recently brought on as an intern at an engineering firm in Chicago, which means he will live with me for roughly four months, before heading back to Minneapolis to tackle his final semester of school. I’m so proud of him and so excited to have someone to come home to once again.

I know there will always be both good days and bad days, just like there are always going to be both blue skies and grey, turbulent skies. The cool thing is that my intense love of aviation has not only made flight exciting, as opposed to utterly terrifying, for me… it has helped me to embrace and actually love hitting rough air. I love—and I mean LOVE—the chop.

All in all, I’m just hoping I can use what I’ve learned through flight (that everything will be OK despite the bumps) to help ease the pain of the tough times in everyday life. I’m not a religious person, but I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Tomorrow, and the next day, and even the day after that are going to happen… and I’m going to make the best of each and every one of those days.