Month: January 2010

Distractions from the Short Term

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With my husband on a roll and progressing through his syllabus at a rate greater than one flight every several months, it is starting to sink in that we really might find ourselves out of FRS limbo in a couple short months.  I get a little jolt of adrenaline just thinking about it, and I’ll work myself into a tizzy if I dwell on everything that ought to get done in case of this or that eventuality of duty station.  I’m trying especially hard to avoid getting caught up in speculation over how many slots there might be for each squadron and how that breakdown matches up with the stated preferences of each student in my husband’s class, but it is hard to keep from tripping down that line of thought.  Rather than thinking about the short-range implications of PCSing or not PCSing, I think I need to extend my view to what I want to do after we are settled wherever we might be for the next three years.

The obvious choice is to get a job.  We made the decision early on that I wouldn’t sweat looking for employment while we were living with the frequent moves and general uncertainty of flight school, and for the most part I think that was a wise decision for us.  I have been able to be flexible and supportive throughout some big changes and short-notice moves.  I have had the privilege of being home when my husband is home during a time when his schedule is different every day.  Besides, the job markets in some of the places we lived were, shall we say, not exactly brimming with opportunities in my field.  A lengthy search process coupled with the fact that we were only in a given place for an indefinite (usually short — under three months, in one case) period of time would have made for an absurd state of affairs both stressful and pointless.  So, I figured that it would be best to wait to begin my search in earnest until the Nasal Radiator of the family was firmly ensconced in his fleet squadron and we were looking at a luxuriously lengthy stint of three years in one place.

Of course, neither of us had any idea that it would take quite this long to even approach that point.  That’s the Navy — and more specifically, flight school — for you.

I now find myself nearly four years out of college without any real work experience with which to pepper my résumé.  I have volunteer experience I can play up, but I cannot shake the grim suspicion that it’s not going to look ultra-fabulous that my credentials rely heavily on academic work from four or more years ago, especially in a fast-moving, constantly changing field.  Hearing of job searches for people with much more relevant experience dragging on for half a year or more fails to inspire confidence in my ability to land meaningful employment.  Optimism doesn’t always come naturally to me, and I am terrified that prospective employers won’t give me another look after they say to themselves, “Hmm, graduated with a solid academic record, honor societies and club leadership and such… and then immediately got married and became a housewife?  Next, please, and this is for the shredder when you get a minute.”

I think it boils down to nerves and uncertainty about my ability to do something I haven’t done before: make the transition from college to the working world.  Most of my peers have already done it because they didn’t have to immerse themselves fully in an “All Navy, All the Time!” bubble shortly after graduation.  I do not regret my decision to focus on our fledgling marriage and the necessary adjustment to the military lifestyle; adding my career angst to the mix would have made these last few years more stressful than they have been.  Up until now, my husband’s progression through flight school has been our top priority.  Now that we are nearing a point that has, until recently, seemed so far off in the future that it wasn’t worth thinking about, I’m just a little anxious about taking the first steps toward figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.

Oh well.  It does give me something to think about other than how much I wince at the prospect of seeing our crap go into cardboard boxes again.

Surprise

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So I got a text from my husband the other day that his det was ending early.  Since he had mentioned a few days prior that they were getting so many X’s (completed flight syllabus events) that they might wrap up a day early, I thought that’s what he was talking about and perked up at the thought of getting to see him a day ahead of schedule.  It wasn’t until I got a call that he had made it through airport security and was waiting for his flight that I realized he had meant the det was ending right then and he was on his way home.  Surprise!

Now, our house had suffered the fate of many post-holiday spaces and looked a meteor shower of clutter had rained down upon it.  One of my goals for this det was to whip things back into shape so my husband could come home, marvel briefly at my sparkling organization skills, and promptly dump his boots and sea bag full of laundry on the floor.  I was pleased with my progress — the transformation in our bedroom was particularly notable — but I had expected to have several more days to sort through piles of papers and really make things look finished and together.  Hell, I hadn’t even started on the guest room/office/place we throw everything when we can’t think where else to put it.

I spent the next few hours with, ah, strongly renewed housekeeping motivation.  By the time I was ready to quit so I could catch a few episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I’m pleased to say that things looked pretty darn good in spite of the Navy’s insistence on sliding my whole cleaning schedule to the left by a few days.  Even though it was one in the morning by the time he walked in the door, my husband was appropriately impressed and appreciative of my efforts.  He even waited a couple days to dump his sea bag all over the floor.

I was, naturally, thrilled to see my husband a little sooner than expected, but it is kind of a bummer that they weren’t able to get in a couple more days of flying out there.  Everyone had been doing so well and knocking out more events in a low-stress, highly efficient sort of way, so it’s a shame they couldn’t squeeze in just a little more before it was decided that the airplanes were needed elsewhere.  Still, it was a nice surprise and I’m not about to complain about the short little getting-our-long-distance-hand-back-in det being even shorter and easier than anticipated.  I am well aware that while this fits in with the general rule of nothing military-related ever turning out precisely as planned, Murphy’s usual SOP is to extend military separations rather than reduce them.  We’re savoring this change of plans as a bit of good fortune — who knows when we’ll be lucky enough to have a surprise as nice as this again?

I Miss Flying

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With my husband flying again and loving life as he learns to wrestle “the beast” that is the mighty War Pig C-2A Greyhound into compliance, I find that with my excitement for him comes a certain green-eyed envy.  It’s been months since I’ve been up in the air in anything other than a commercial jet, and it’s giving me the shakes, man.  I can almost feel those perishable skills withering from lack of use; I need to get myself in the right seat again before I really do forget everything I learned about conducting a SAR mission and dazzling everyone with my G1000 mastery (okay, okay, my G1000 competency, at the very least).  Time to start poking at pilots in my CAP squadron for a proficiency flight or three — preferably funded by our estimable patron in blue, the United States Air Force.  Gotta stay in practice if we’re going to be of any use in an emergency, after all… oh, who am I kidding?  While I absolutely do care about being as proficient as possible as a Mission Observer, I love any excuse to get up in the air.

I would be thrilled if stars aligned this year such that I could start work on my own private pilot certificate.  The sticking point for me is that I want to have the time and resources to fly frequently enough (more than once a week, if at all possible) that I can progress along that learning curve without a lot of retracing my steps due to time out of the cockpit.  I hear of so many people hitting the proverbial wall before they get their certificates simply because they are unable to fly regularly, whether due to scheduling conflicts or running out of ready cash.  There are scholarships available through several organizations, including a few devoted to women in aviation, but most seem to require that one has at least reached a certain milestone in the training process.  There’s no way I can even start until after we are settled wherever we are going to be for my husband’s first fleet squadron, and I’ll have to wait even longer if we wind up in Japan.

It will happen someday, though, even if we have to wrench those stars into alignment by force.  How else will I be able to fully enjoy the kit plane we intend to build someday off in the misty future after my husband retires?

Cheating on my Blog with a Paper Journal

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So, my husband has been away on a training det for about a week, and I haven’t been saying too much about it online.  I have, however, started a project I’ve had tumbling around in my head for a while: each day that my husband is away for whatever reason — whether it’s for a couple days, a couple weeks, or a much longer separation — I am writing in a paper journal.  I haven’t missed a day yet this go ’round, and I like to think I will be able to keep it up throughout this stint apart and on into future dets (some of which will be deployment length, but the COD community is detachment-based rather than having the entire squadron gone at the same time).

There are advantages to having a private place to blather on about my day.  For one thing, I don’t have to be as concerned about OPSEC no-nos like departure dates and countdowns to coming home.  For another, I can write about searingly mundane things like what I had for lunch or who woke me up in the middle of the night with a text message without worrying that I’m boring you, dear Reader, to tears.  (Bonus: it’s a really pretty little book, too, and I’m enough of a stationery dork to get a real thrill out of scribbling in it.)  Of course, I don’t get any sort of sense of community, no give-and-take, no conversation about my personal musings when they are ink-on-paper and thus entrenched firmly in the offline world.  I need both my writing outlets.  Therefore, the following is a snapshot of what is going on in my head these days.

This is the first time in well over a year that my husband has been gone for longer than overnight watch, and I worried that I would find myself off-kilter and out of practice.  After all, I have been blessed to have him by my side nearly 24/7 for far, far longer than we ever thought possible in the Navy.  Of course, the main reason for this surfeit of togetherness was the significant back-up in the C-2 pipeline that was keeping my husband out of the cockpit for a distressingly extended period.  We tried to make the most out of all that time together — time which we are all too aware that other military couples would practically kill to have — but we never had a clue whether he would start the syllabus proper the next day or months hence.  We still couldn’t make any big plans for all that “time off” with such a Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads.

Now that he is definitely, assuredly, without a doubt in the class that is next in line for CQ (Carrier Qualification, or proving that you can land your airplane on that damn Boat scooting around in the middle of the ocean), I think we both feel much better.  We’re well aware that, as with all things Navy, anything could happen to throw a monkey wrench in The Plan, but things are rolling and there’s a light at the end of the FRS tunnel.  He is actually getting to fly on a regular enough basis to see improvement with every event, and he is gaining confidence every day in the aircraft.  I love hearing the excitement in his voice when we talk on the phone.  I can’t wait until I get to see the smile on his face when he strides back into the house — sweaty, smelling of NOMEX and old airplane, and sporting some serious helmet head — after a good flight.  It is as if after a year and a half in hurry-up-and-wait limbo, he remembers who he is and why he has those Wings of Gold on his chest.

Getting readjusted to my husband having a busy schedule and going away isn’t mega-fun, but neither has it been unbearable.  I guess coping with long distance is like riding a bicycle; when you’ve done it before, you can do it again.  Of course, it helps knowing that he’ll be back before too much longer, and I do appreciate being able to get my hand back in on an easy, short det like this one.  There are a few more of this stripe coming up over the next few months, and beyond that, we’ll find out whether we’re staying where we are or PCSing someplace entirely new for the first fleet squadron.  Then we’ll have to be ready for the big leagues whenever that first “real” six month (or more) det pops up.

Betcha we can handle it.

New Year, New Calendar

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Fair warning: I am such a dork that one of my favorite New Year’s rituals is transferring important birthdays, anniversaries, and minor Jewish holidays that are almost never printed already from the old wall calendar to the new.  Filling in those fresh boxes gives me the (perhaps illusory) sense that I know the shape of the upcoming year, and flipping through the pages of last year’s calendar brings back memories of how we spent the previous twelve months.  I get nostalgia and anticipation all rolled into one chore, which is fun even if it does come with the disturbing realization of how long ago some events I still have filed under “recent” in my head actually took place.

Today’s transcription did, however, unearth a bit of a mystery.  On the square marked January 30, 2009 is one word: “DRUNKEX!”  I cannot for the life of me remember what we were doing that evening — a party? An NFO winging?  Some silly, private evening of staying in and digging into our own, ah, “spiritual” stash?  I have no idea, but it sure sounds like it should have been fun.

If, by chance, you happen to know what on earth I meant by that cryptic inscription, I’d love to hear it.  In any case, I hope your 2010 is full of wonderful memories that actually stick in your mind for years to come.