Incurable Disease

“Hello. My name is Angelia. I am a pilot’s wife.”

Sometimes when I announce that particular life fact, it feels like I’m revealing some deep, dark secret to a sympathetic support group beneath the cold, unfeeling fluorescents of some damp basement room.

Or like I’ve been diagnosed with an incurable illness.

Because that’s how people react.

“Ooooh, darling! Bless your little heart. I’m sooooo sorry. It must be terrible being married to a pilot and being alone so much. You might as well be raising those sweet babies all by yourself.”

Insert unbridled clucks of sympathy and pity pats a plenty. But how can you blame them, really?

Because to be completely and utterly fair, sometimes  [a lot of times] we act like we’ve been diagnosed with an incurable disease.

It’s a woah-is-me mentality.

Some of us have embraced a life of tepid misery and we… Well, frankly we roll around in it like a dog on a rotting carcass–covering ourselves in the putrid scent of our misery until that’s all anyone can smell on us.

So they pity us.

When a new pilot wife enters our midst the common question is, “tell me how bad it really is.” Not how good–how horribly, miserably, terribly bad. Spill it, sister.

And boy do we ever.

“It’s terrible being married to a pilot. I might as well be a single parent. I feel like a broken divorcee most of the time. My life is sooooo much harder than the average human being.”

Except it’s not.

The pilot wife life is not a bad normal, just a different normal.

Every husband–pilot, retail manager, doctor, and accountant alike–has his quirks (and heaven knows, every wife too).  Every career has its ups and downs. Every marriage has its trials. Every life has moments of joy and sorrow.

Every.

Sorry, ladies, but we simply do not hold the exclusivity card for life difficulties and marital trials. And it’s time we stop acting like we do because it’s ruining our marriages.

We have a choice to make–a choice to live this life with exceeding joy or a choice to live it in self-inflicted misery.

I choose joy. 

Look, like any job or circumstance, the pilot wife life is what you make of it. We can certainly continue to sulk and bemoan all the things that are beyond our control, after all there are plenty to choose from. But there is profound beauty and joy to be had if we only choose it– if we live every ounce of our pilot wife lives to its fullest.

I adore my pilot. And I do mean adore! He is my everything. My husband, my lover, my companion, my best friend in the entire world. I choose him. Over and over, I choose him. Not because he’s perfect or life’s perfect but because he’s mine.

And I am his.

You see, he chooses me too! I love being his pilot wife. I love the ‘me’ time, the independence, the excitement, the travel.

But most of all, I love seeing the man I chose excel at the passions of his heart. I get to be part of that! I get to be his encourager. I get to be his parachute when he falls and his wings when he soars. Just wow.

But here’s the kicker. He does those things for me too because marriage is reciprocal.

Of course, I hate when he leaves and can’t wait for the moment he returns home, but I live for the moment he comes into view standing outside of C departures, the moment he takes me in his arms, and the moment his lips meet mine. It’s almost like we get to experience our ‘first kiss’ over and over again for the rest of our pilot wife life.

We choose this life. I choose him. He chooses me! Every moment of every day…is amazing. Even when it’s not. This life is perfect in its imperfection because I get to do the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows, the laughter and the tears of this crazy, chaotic life with the man I fell in love with and married–my pilot.

I received some slack for a recent blog (Distance Makes the Heart Grow Distant). However, I don’t apologize. Sorry, girls. I just don’t. TRAVEL is a good acronym for every single marriage–aviation, not aviation, newlywed, long-wed, struggling, or soaring. It is a recipe for joy!

Talking openly with your spouse, rejecting negativity in your life, allowing time for fun, clinging to your vows, forgiving freely, and loving no matter what—those are healthy applications for healthy marriage!

Look, I know we are all at different places in our marriages and that’s okay. More than okay. 

This communityis about loving and supporting each other no matter where you fall on the ‘marital bliss’ spectrum today. It’s about passing down pilot wife wisdom and preventing others from making the mistakes we have made (and suffering what we have suffered).

It’s about finding a new way–a better way–to live this life and seeking out the joy that some of us already have and all of us so desperately want to experience.

Pour positivity into your life. Find what works for you. Live life vivaciously. Surround yourself with great people. Appreciate your blessings. Seek joy. F.L.Y.

Your husband is not your enemy. He is not expendable. He is the man you fell in love with–the one you gave your heart to. He is the person you stood at the alter with and promised to love and cherish forever.

Being a pilot wife? It’s not an incurable disease; it’s an indescribable blessing. It’s being married to a passionate, talented, hard-working man who gives freely of himself so that I can have a great life. There’s a lot worse things, believe me.

So yeah, I choose joy. And I’m inviting you to choose it with me.

Angelia (A Fellow Pilot Wife)

CHECK OUT THE JUST WINGING IT SERIES BY ANGELIA GRIFFIN HERE!

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