friday the 13th

There's a lot that's great about having a pilot for a boyfriend. He loves what he does. People enjoy hearing about his work. He travels often and it gives us a nice chance to miss each other, keeping the relationship fresh. Last weekend he took me flying with him and I got to see Columbus from above. . . .

But even with benefits like that, there are certain aspects to dating a pilot that are usually easiest not to think about. Unfortunately, sometimes, they're impossible to ignore.

I was staying at his house over winter break. It was an unusually windy day, the kind that causes the outside walls of the house make those nervous shifting noises. Around noon, I decided to call him, just to make sure he wasn't going to fly in such gusty weather, but I couldn't find my cell phone. There's no way he'd be out in this weather, I assured myself.

That evening when he came home:

“Hi!” said I.

“Hi!” said he.

“How are you?” said I.

“Uh... I am ok!” he exclaimed with an odd dramatic quality in his voice.

“Did you get fired?” I asked jokingly.

“No,” he responded assertively. “I have been assured that I definitely am not fired.”

That was not a response I was expecting.

“Did you crash?” was my next logical question.

“Yeah,” he replied, and quickly added before I could freak out, “but I'm ok!”

It was on the evening news. Two pilots (Adam was in the co-pilot seat, his co-worker was flying) got out of this plane unharmed at Port Columbus Airport on Friday the 13^th. Their front wheels had just landed on the runway when a burst of wind essentially caused the back end to go up in the air and they skidded for about 20 feet down the runway nose-first.

So, that kind of thing not my favorite thing about dating a pilot. But right now, while he's in Dallas, or yesterday when he was flying back from New Jersey, I don't think about that. I think about the fact that he's really living, that he could have kept studying Electrical Engineering and he could be sitting for 8 hours every day in a cubicle. Instead, he spends days at a time flying through the air, across the country, taking pictures of the ground below.

“Avoiding danger is not safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” - Helen Keller