Yesterday, I gave the best explanation for why I got fired from the flight school to a friend. I explained the complexity without getting lost in the details. I was able to take responsibility for the weaknesses that I brought to that proverbial table without excusing the abuses of power that combined in such a volatile way with circumstances so far beyond my control.

In no way do I ever want to be back in that time and space. It's better left where it is as it is. But I'm still not over it. This March will make 4 years since I was fired and I have adapted and adjusted, rebuilt and remade so many aspects of my life. I'm proud of my resiliency.

I never thought that I could take lessons from the Phoenix and choose to live again still surrounded by the ashes and rubble of what I thought was a good plan. Even though this phase of life hardly feels like a glorious rebirth, I can sense myself becoming someone stronger than I was as I keep pushing forward. It feels like I am woman with one foot in two different worlds. Each day, I lose a little ground in one world and live more fully in the other. At first, this process grieved me. I didn't want to lose the dream, but I didn't want to get hurt anymore.

The strangest part of all of this is that the more I leave aviation and the life that I was building there, the more clearly what I want comes into to focus. What I want is what that job should have been. I love the potential that a flight school has as a work place with a culture of learning and adventure. But that dream burned and I remade myself into another animal entirely...right?

What I want is flying. Oh God, how I want to fly. I want a team like the one I have now but I want aviation. The question I return to in the inconvenient moments when talking about the past resurrects it for a little while is "why can't I have both?" And there I am, astride these opposing galaxies trying to figure out what is good, what is possible, and if those things have anything to do with flying.