"So What Is It Like?"

 Let's talk about what it is like at home as a pilot's wife... rant post - 

Two things I have been shocked about hearing when people find out or I tell them I am pilot's wife. First - the amount of people who assume "home life is hard" (word for word what someone told me about my life after knowing me for 30 seconds). Second - The amount of to-be-pilots who have asked me advice I could give their spouse or partner because they are afraid of what their career will do to their home life. 

 You know those cancer patients who get annoyed with people who treat them different because they have cancer? Or, you know those who have a physical handicap that get annoyed and want to be treated the same as others? I have always resinated with those people and felt like I could understand them. It would be derisive to correlate being a pilots wife with cancer or having a physical handicap. However, I have found that I am starting to get impatient with the assumptions people have about my life. I believe I am getting this way because these assumptions are unpremeditatedly negative: Supposing I am a "One Man Show", a "Single Mom", home life is hard, we never see Taylor, I'm doing it all alone (word by word phrases I've been told). I won't sugar coat it, there are 3, 4 sometimes 5 days in a row where I don't see Taylor (5 is EXTREMELY uncommon) and by the last day, I'm excited, giddy, and sometimes relieved to have him home. I don't look at my life as the mom pig, Rosita, from the movie "SING" where I feel unseen, unheard, and undeserved. Every day my life has meaning. As a wife and mom where my husband and kids see me, hear me, and show me in their 3 year old, 1 year old, and across the country face-timing husband ways, that I am deserving. I feel seen, heard, and deserved even when my husband is 1,900 miles away.  On the other side of Taylor being gone 3, 4, sometimes 5 days in a row...GUESS WHAT?... Taylor is home 3, 4 sometimes 5 days in a row! We've even had bouts of time when it's been 2 weeks in a row (When Taylor worked on reserve instead of a line). When he's home, there's no e-mails from work, no phone calls from work, or "running to the office" moments. When he's home, he's home. He is all there. 

When Taylor first talked to me about becoming a pilot, my first reaction was worry about how little I would see him. That reaction was ignorant and reactive of what I have heard yet never experienced. Back in 2016, USU aviation held a BBQ for pilots and their wives so that those of us who would someday find ourselves in their positions, could get a few pointers or heads up into the life we were headed for. From that one BBQ there was a pilot's wife whose comment has stayed with me since. "Most working husbands are maybe present in the morning and then go to work. Then they come home around dinner, just in time to for the kids to have dinner and go to bed. With a husband as a pilot, they won't be there for some mornings, some dinners, and some bed times but then there will be days, whole days, that they are there. They can let you sleep in, take the kids to school, bring them a lunch, go out to lunch with you, go to kids games and activities, and they're home all day with you. You get them all day for days on end." I loved her positivity and outlook. It's not counting the days they're gone. It's counting the days they're home. And believe me, there are an ample amount of days that they are home. 

I know I am asking a lot to have sympathy for me but also to give me the decency of realizing you have no idea what my life at home is like and how it's actually completely wonderful. When it's day 4 of 4 and I'm late, or completely forgot, or misplaced, or if I insist my 3 balloons be brought down from the sealing of the grocery store that my 3 year old untied from the anchor... I need sympathy, a "you've got this mama", and someone there to tell me that not every day is easy and that it is okay. But please don't assume my days are rough because my husband is a pilot. Life is just rough sometimes. Presuming that I have to do it all and that it is hard and I deserve a "poor you" because I'm a pilots wife disregards my strength, disregards my amazing husband and all he does for us, disregards my happiness, and disregards the truth that I can be a pilots wife and I rock at it. It's the twenty first century for heaven's sake! What could I possibly not be able to do?

There are times you miss them like crazy. There are times where you really want them home because you're sick trying to parent. There are times when you loose your phone and need them to find it on the "find my" app but can't because they're descending an airplane so fast that the nose the aircraft is on fire (actually common) and there is a 50+ knots cross wind and not enough fuel to land at another airport. There are times but that's just it... times. It's not constant, it's not regular, it's just times... moments. The last time I talked to a home maker mom who had a husband working a 9am-5pm job, she experiences the same rough days but no-one goes to her and comments "poor you because your husband has a job."

FUN FACT - One thing I did not know prior to being a pilots wife is that when I say he's home for 3 days that means 3 whole days. That means if he is home the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, he arrived the night of the 1st and is flying the morning or afternoon of the 5th. Those days he's home are WHOLE DAYS! 

Support and positivity. Not, disregard and negativity. Thanks a million.

Side note... I am writing this day 3 of 4. He's home tomorrow night and I can't wait to kiss his face off. He will then be home for 3 days. 3 days! 72 hours! 4,320 minutes!

The Pilot's wife