It has been a long time since I’ve written about the Air Traffic Control side of life. This is mostly because the job isn’t mine to talk about.
What I can talk about is how the wife of an Air Traffic Controller feels, over a year into “on the floor” training. I could go on and on about the lingo (Bravo, maintain, cross Shawn at…) but I won’t. I could tell you about airspace and map points (Willmar, Mankato..) but I won’t do that either. I won’t talk about those things, because I stay home and don’t know nearly 1/2 any of what goes on in the depths of the center in Farmington.
What I can tell you about, is what goes on at home.
Our days of the week will forever be a three year old's version of how the week runs. Our Tuesday is now Wednesday, our Friday now Saturday. Your Friday makes my knees weak with how tired my husband will be at the end of the day, but your Saturday is so much sweeter knowing it is our Friday. I will never have a case of the Mondays, to me that is just an ordinary Sunday. We’ve experienced lots of different Wednesdays and for just 3 short weeks Wednesday was actually Wednesday. This was the most confusing 3 weeks of all.
It’s ok though. Over the last year and a half we have learned to adjust. I have learned to adjust. Change is inevitable and most certainly will happen with this career. We eat at least one meal a day with the man of our house. Some days we even get breakfast and lunch; those days are most special. He works hard and pretty much never brings work home with him. He studies and jabbers about different call signs that he must get right. When at work he trains really hard. He tries to remember everything they want him to, all while trying to keep planes a float and far apart. When he comes home, two little girls cannot get to the top of the stairs fast enough, while yelling “DADDY!!” waiting to give him a big hug. The dog is followed close behind wagging her little doggy tail and excited to have the top of her head pet by her most favorite companion.
We’ve made the adjustments and it has turned into our normal. I never, not in a million years, thought I would fall in love with the schedule that we have. I enjoy having the girls to myself a few nights a week and I love the days when Brent walks in at 3:00 pm. Sure there are parts of the week that I loathe, but everybody has those days in their week. I am most in love with our weekend. A special, almost 72 hours, that we spend doing all sorts of fun family fun.
He is one of the hardest working men I know. He does it all without complaining. Most days I am amazed that he can walk in the door, hang is ATC hat up, and put his Daddy hat on with such ease. And now I must go. It is your Friday, but on these days I usually head up to bed a little bit early. I will undoubtedly find my husband curled up in bed almost fast asleep, to us, it is not quite Friday night. (Check time of post. 8:35pm)
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