I have a confession. When I was a kid, I was scared of flying. Not just scared…terrified. When my parents would go on a trip, I would stay up all night before they left crying into my pillow imagining the worst things that could happen during their flights. Growing up, I only flew a couple of times, but each trip would have me overwhelmed with anxiety for weeks beforehand. I hated flying.
Fast forward to 2008. A different kind of utter terror that I was experiencing (and probably shared with millions of other recent college graduates before me)… “What the F*CK do I do now??” I had graduated from Clemson University (Go Tigers!) with a BFA in Visual Arts with a concentration in photography and a minor in film studies. Not knowing the exact route I wanted to take, I moved home to Columbia, South Carolina to figure things out. I knew I wanted to experience more of the world than just the southeastern United States. The 9-5 lifestyle was also a “hard no” in my book. A steady income and health insurance was a must. I also knew I didn’t really have a passion to jump into the wedding photography business. However, I HAD to have a job that either was centered around creativity or one that had enough leeway that I could intertwine art into what I would be doing…not just because my degree was in art, but because I truly loved it. It’s just like the way Mr. John Keating (Robin Williams 💔) from Dead Poets Society felt about poetry. “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
After compiling the list of necessities for my nonexistent career, I finally had the epiphany. I would be a FLIGHT ATTENDANT! It checked off all of the boxes!
Travel the World ✔️
Steady Income ✔️
Health Insurance ✔️
Definitely not a 9-5 schedule ✔️
And in my mind, the best part was how I could use this job to travel the world to take pictures! Just the thought of all of the different places I would see were igniting ideas for documenting destinations with photography. There was just that one small problem. I WAS TERRIFIED TO FLY!
I tried to put that minuscule detail out of my mind while I scoured the internet for open flight attendant positions. I finally found a job posting for Freedom Airlines, a small regional carrier based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. They were a subsidiary of Mesa Air Group. I’m sure many people in the aviation industry have stories about working at Mesa, myself included…we’ll save that for another blog post. 🤣 Shortly after applying, I was invited to an in-person interview in Charlotte, North Carolina. The interview was a blur, but I remember actually mentioning that I was a nervous flyer. They must have completely missed that part, because I was offered an invitation to fly out to Mesa, Arizona for initial training. When I accepted the spot in the training class, that is when the pit in my stomach grew boulder sized.
I still remember, exactly 10 years years ago today, how absolutely horrified I was. I was standing in my childhood home in Columbia and literally crying to my mom, telling her that I wasn’t sure I could do this. I was paralyzed with fear. Did I really agree to start FLYING as a career?! But I knew beyond that fear could be something amazing. Life changing. I didn’t want to have any regrets. So, somehow, with every ounce of my gut, I stepped onto that CRJ on March 16, 2009, and I flew to Arizona to become a flight attendant.
In the past ten years I’ve worked for two regional airlines, made the switch to private aviation, traveled the world, experienced different cultures and visited new countries, taken thousands of pictures and conquered my fear of flying. I am so grateful for this job and the people I’ve met through it. It has shaped my life. I feel like there are so many missed opportunities in life that are kept from us because of our own fears.
DO NOT LET FEAR DECIDE YOUR FATE!
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