intrepidshaz:

Searching across tumblr for people who’ve discovered their true passion and have had the courage to stick through life during their tough days, came across Gemma. The blog about life and how she managed to live through her difficult, full-time paid job and finally found her dream is really…

Chapter 0

It’s done.

Last week, I handed in my letter of resignation for my old job and made the decision to keep flying the friendly skies official.  Then, I celebrated my 25th birthday.

It’s a melancholy feeling, but I really feel like I’m being true to myself with the decision I made.  It’s liberating and exciting and scary all at the same time.  It’s like I’m starting all over again; like I’ve literally changed the course of where my life is going.  

I deliberated over what I would do when the time came to make a decision for the whole year, my choices looming over me like a dark cloud.  Then, at a certain point, I realized I could only compare my two options to a certain extent because they were just so wildly different from each other.  And so, I decided to follow my gut and take this crazy leap into the unknown.

I’ve had an incredible year with both ups and downs.  After all, no job is perfect.  Nevertheless, I still count myself as one of the lucky ones, having been given a second chance to do something I’ve always dreamt of doing.  This job has taken me to Athens, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dublin, Frankfurt, London, Paris, and most recently, Beijing - not to mention the multitude of Canadian and American cities I never would have visited under any other circumstance.

Sure, I realize I might be taking the hard way, the long way around…but I couldn’t be more certain I’ve made the right choice for myself at this stage of my life.

I’m happy.

And it’s such a relief to be able to say that and truly mean it.  

Bring it on, world.

The one in which I detail the crux of my quarter life crisis. It’s long. But it’s RIVETING STUFF.

I don’t keep a diary. I used to.  I found it cathartic to write things out by hand.  Then, I started blogging, and for a while that worked too.  Since starting up this Tumblr, I haven’t used it as a platform for writing much about personal things, and I like it that way.  But sometimes, you just have something you need to say; thoughts, words, rationalizations, realizations that tumble (no pun intended) through your mind at random times that just need to be released somehow.  This is one of those times.  It’s not enough for me to “commit” to blogging again, much less keeping a journal/diary.  But it’s just perfect for my corner of the internet. 

I apologize for how long this could turn out to be.  I’ve had a whole year with this on my mind and it’s only now that I’m starting to find the words to describe my neuroses.

I am a flight attendant.  That small statement is both strange and monumental for me to be able to say.  Since I first stepped into an airport and onto a plane when I was 10 years old, I have always, inexplicably, almost subconsciously, wanted to be a flight attendant .  I say subconsciously because as much as I admired, envied, and coveted what I considered to be the coolest job ever (being in a different city and flying all over the world and getting paid for it? HELLO!), I didn’t ever consider NOT finishing my schooling, or even specifically gearing my studies towards a career in the airline and travel industry.  Instead I pursued a liberal arts degree in a unique program that didn’t really lend itself to specific career path.  “What was I going to do with my degree?”, I remember being asked.  “Anything,” I remember repeating, over and over - but oddly never really or truly considering the only thing that had ever captivated me as a ‘dream job’ as a viable career path.  When I think about my upbringing, however, it’s not all that odd.  In a way, I feel like maybe I didn’t truly consider flying as an option because it was written off as more of a silly fantasy - it wasn’t a solid, stable career that would necessarily provide me with the security of a profession or full-time, Monday to Friday, 9-5 job (theoretically) could.

When I graduated from university, I thought the world would come a-knockin’, begging me with my shiny, new degree to grace their company with my presence.  Silly me.  But I have yet to meet a recent or soon-to-be university graduate who hasn’t felt the same way.  It’s almost like a ritual we all have to go through for ourselves before we realize that university is SO NOT the real world.  Hell, it’s been four years and I feel like I’ve changed and learned and grown so much in that time…and yet like things have only just begun.  But I digress.

Anyway, fresh out of school, it just so happened that a couple of airlines were doing some mass open call hiring for flight attendants.  Considerably, (as this was NOT a viable option, after all) these ads reawakened my latent/subconscious curiosity (which had been dormant for quite some time) to be a flight attendant and see the world.  If anything, I figured that it would be a fun thing to try out for - something fun to do for a couple of years, until I figured out where my life was going.  Long story short, things didn’t pan out.  I was disappointed and confused - more so that I thought I would be, but also because in my heart of hearts, I knew that I wasn’t going to go any further to pursue a career as a flight attendant.  It would have been great had things just worked out with the timing of things, but as my parents told me then, it was time to get serious about finding a “real” job and planning for my future.  I can’t recall for sure, but my mom will probably attest that I ugly-cried that night.   For a short, fleeting moment my passion for this job had been reignited, and then taken away just as abruptly when I felt it was closer than I had ever dreamed possible.  I also knew that if it didn’t happen now, it likely was never going to ever happen.  Or so I thought…

In time, I got over it.  It wasn’t long before I found myself employed at my first full-time job EVER.  With a SALARY.  It was a big deal, people.  The job wasn’t ideal, but it was a start.  I met fabulous people and had a fantastic manager, both of which helped make the daily grind more bearable.  But after about 6 months, I began to feel restless.  I wanted more, wanted a new challenge, wanted a change of scenery.  I was no longer satisfied with the job, or the money I was being paid to do it.  So I searched for job more closely related to my field, or at least for one that would pay me more until I gained enough corporate experience to get me there.

My search landed me the latter.  I whooped for joy and ugly-cried in a very different context when I got the call saying that I’d been selected for the job…after a gruelling 9-month process.  I had done it!  I had won! I deserved this! I earned it!  All of these were things I told myself in those weeks of anticipation leading up to the start of the new job.  THE PROMOTION.  I had hoped for this.  I had PRAYED for this.  And finally, it seemed that things were beginning to fall into place.  Unfortunately for me, it was only a matter of weeks into the job that I realized what I had been hired for seemed to be a lot more of a massive and challenging undertaking now that it was my reality.  My sentiments of triumph prior to starting at the new job were quickly replaced by only one:  “You asked for this”.  And it was true, I tried to tell myself.  I couldn’t complain, because I HAD said I needed a challenge - and boy, was I getting EXACTLY what I had asked for…but much, much more than I had ever bargained for…

A series of unfortunate events.  That’s probably the, most tactful way to describe what my time at the new job was like.  It became the norm for me to come home and cry from sheer frustration, anger, helplessness and desperation anywhere from 2-3 times a week.  I felt I had so much to prove, and that I had so much to contribute, and yet I kept saying the wrong thing or handling things incorrectly.  I would dissect my days, decisions, memos, emails, interactions, conflicts and discussions a million ways, never understanding why I just couldn’t seem to win. I seemed incapable of being able to leave my work at work at the end of the day and it began to wear me down. Granted, it wasn’t ALL bad, ALL the time…but victories were small and short-lived, and I felt like I was already in a rut, spinning futilely. The harder and faster I tried to work, the deeper into this hole I seemed to dig myself.  “If this is what I felt like with less than a year here, how did that bode well for the rest of my career?”, I wondered.  But what was I going to do? LEAVE?!  Leave this security blanket of an organization? And do what, exactly? As if.  In my mind, this was IT.  I had to do my best to focus on the positive and not to overlook the benefits that I was getting in the long (long, LONG) run, in the grand scheme of things.  But as much as I acknowledged that there were those overarching positives and that this job was ultimately a means to an end…I was still dissatisfied.  Except I didn’t KNOW I was dissatisfied, not until serendipity, fate, timing - whatever you want to call it - dropped the flight attendant opportunity back into my lap, and gave me the chance to give this dream of mine a go…all while holding the office job for a full 15 months for me, in case I decided I wanted it back.

This year away has given me some perspective.  SOME.  I understand that my rut analogy can be resolved simply by saying that the lesson here is that slow and steady wins the race. That maybe if I hadn’t tried to spin so fast, I wouldn’t have burnt all of my fuel so quickly. I’m reminded of my dad’s words every time he tells me when driving in snowy or slippery conditions: Push very gently on the pedal.  Get some traction.  Don’t try to accelerate too fast, or you’ll just end up spinning on the spot until you fishtail unexpectedly and lose control. 

One could argue that it is clear what I should do when forced to make the inevitable choice that looms ahead of me in a few short months: I have a foot in the door with a stable employer.  One that has just given me a full year to do whatever the hell I want…all while keeping my full-time job open and ready for me if I decide to come back - no questions asked.  It is a job with by no means lucrative, but good earning potential - better than I will ever see in the airline, at least with In-Flight opportunities.  An organization that I know I could do well in and dozens of opportunities that I could potentially explore with my age and skill set both being on my side.  A company I can grow - and grow older - with.  All of this is true, yes.  But at what cost?  At this stage in my life, am I willing to just tough it out for some eventual, subtle payoff (i.e. a comfortable, albeit thoroughly predictable life) that I will try to convince myself is what I always wanted for myself ‘x’ years down the road? Obviously, I won’t be able to deny that I thanks to the fact that I stuck it out, I was able to afford a certain lifestyle that I can’t exactly ‘complain’ about without coming across as an ungrateful wench.  Incidentally, am I willing to walk away from an opportunity I competed for, for 9 long months? From a break I got that was likely a strange combination of timing, luck, and sheer fluke - and that I may never see again? 

Conversely, am I willing to walk away from flying before I feel like I’m ready?  Despite having several different avenues and career paths I’d definitely want to try there simply because “my time is up”?  Because the other side that can be argued is that the chance I got to fly after all this time is the REAL blessing.  That all that happened in the time it took for me to finally have this once-in-a-lifetime (because that’s what it truly is!) opportunity, and HOW it all played out is the REAL serendipity of this whole dilemma.  I mean, who’s to say I can’t have the same degree of success down the road, even without taking the conventional path to get there?  We can’t tell what the future holds.  Do planning for the future and living your life to the fullest have to be mutually exclusive?  I don’t think so.  It may be that you’re taking the long way around, but is that so bad?  You may come across those who judge you because of your choices, but so long as YOU are satisfied with what YOU’RE doing with YOUR LIFE, isn’t that what matters more than anything?  Because at the end of the day you have to live it.  My first, anonymous, blog had the tag line “Real life is right here, right now”.  I remember struggling with that back then.  Almost as if I wasn’t willing to believe that THIS WAS MY LIFE.  But I’m getting better at it - and for the first time in four years and three full-time jobs, I can’t even tell you how fast this year seems to have zipped by.  I feel like I was so much more CONSCIOUS of the days that bled into weeks and then into months as they crawled by with my previous jobs.  When I initially embarked upon this, I was all, “FIFTEEN MONTHS?  That’s ages of time to make up my mind,” and now, I’m all “Yeah, it so is not.”  Probably has something to do with the fact that my life is no longer measured by days of the week, but by days ‘on’ or days ‘off’.  I have literally found myself wondering why the HECK it is so packed in the mall/grocery store/parking lot before realizing that it’s a Saturday.

There are many reasons as to why I am satisfied with my current job - IN SPITE of the much lower pay, IN SPITE of the less than glamorous realities of the job, and even IN SPITE of the fact that I haven’t been nearly as lucky as some of my friends have been in terms of coveted overseas flying.  To be honest, the only thing that DISsatisfies me is that for some inexplicable reason, I catch myself still feeling somewhat defensive of what I’m doing.  For most of the past year, when I would run into old acquaintances, or meeting new people, I would find myself saying “I’m a Flight Attendant right now, BUT I’m also on leave from a job.”  I suppose it’s part of the fact that I’ve long been a ‘people-pleaser’, caring more about what others think of me than I’d like to or ought to.  I hated myself for blurting it out every time I did.  It made me feel like I was somehow cheapening something I really, truly, enjoyed doing by following it up with a statement about a more “impressive”-sounding job I held…even though every day I was at that job I felt like a complete and utter phoney who had absolutely no clue what she doing.  Because although throwing a fancy job title in someone’s face gave me a fleeting moment of self-importance, the truth is that the title and the money didn’t make the fact that I was unhappy any easier to swallow.  Why was I so hesitant to be proud of the fact that I seemed to have found something much better suited to me - something that LEST WE FORGET I have ALWAYS wanted to do?  Why did I care what these random acquaintances thought or assumed about what my job entailed, when I KNOW I worked hard - harder than in any other job (and if you know me, that’s saying something) - just to make it through initial training, (which can only be described as INTENSE)? 
 
I am lucky.  Very lucky.  Let me make that clear.  As difficult as this decision is making itself out to be, between weighing the pros and cons and thinking about the future vs. following my heart, I don’t take for granted the fact that I have been blessed with two excellent opportunities no matter which way you cut it.   More than that, I have the freedom and the ability to make a CHOICE rather than to settle for whatever I can get, even if some people may assume that ‘settling’ is exactly what I’d be doing as a Flight Attendant.  In fact, it’s almost the exact opposite for me.  To stay in a job that doesn’t satisfy me but that meets all these requirements on a checklist for why it is the ‘ideal’, would - in my heart and mind - be the REAL definition of settling.  Regardless of whatever choice I make in the end, I know I will have made a decision that I felt was the best for me at this fork in the road in my life.  No matter what happens two, ten, or fifteen years down the road, je ne regrette rien.