Why I fly

I forgot my Houston Sectional map at the airport and went to pick it up today. I stood there for maybe 15 minutes watching the planes come and go.
I swear, when I'm at the airport I feel like a lottery winner on acid.

My instructor said one question the FAA asks when you take your checkride is "why are you learning to fly?" Some people's reasons are for freedom to come and go without lines or hassle, others do it for the adventure and some just for the unique personal challenge. Sadly I even know many people who earned thier licsence and then never flew again.

As for me it is something I've wanted to do since I was maybe 4. Literally around the dawn of my own personality was when I started looking up and saying hey, those machines in the air aren't normal. They are little miracles. It's something more than a whirring clockwork of pistons and pushrods. It's a symbol.. a living and breathing symbol.

It was love at first sight but sadly I could never afford to learn. My only ticket to a halfway decent income was college and naturally I majored in aerospace engineering. The degree was easy.. it turns out when you are genuinely interested in something, it doesn't feel like work.
Even then I scraped by while in college and could only take a few introductory flights.

And now finally it is real. Being in the cockpit is real... landing in a crosswind with your heart in your throat is real... turning away with that storm in my face is real.

It reminds me of the Langston Hughes poem Dreams Deffered

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

-L. Hughes