No more last minute flights to faraway destinations.
No more unexpected first class upgrades, or special lines at TSA.
No more showing kids the flight deck and watching their faces light up when they sit in the captain’s chair.
No more long overnights with fun co workers, and having an extra long layover to explore a new city on the company’s dime...
No more breaking nails on the galley clips.
No more credit card debt mounting because I’m not getting compensated a living wage.
No more sleeping in a not fully reclinable recliner in the crew room because a hotel is too expensive and I’m stuck for the night….
No more free flights to Hawaii,
no more stress of standby,
no more making people smile with PA jokes,
no more tipsy businessmen assuming I’m included in the complementary service…
No more watching the city lights dazzle as we descend on my last leg home.
As much as I’ve gained in almost three years as a flight attendant, I’ve traded for pieces of my sanity, health, trust and motivation.
Most of the people I tell about switching to a 9-5 life marvel at how I could desert the glamour of jet setting. The truth is the shine of it was tarnished already every time I got stranded, or delayed for hours on end or had to go up against an entitled passenger’s bad attitude.
Or when I saw how necessary my union was because my company cared more about completed flights than my health or quality of life. Or every time I was so overwhelmed with the simple act of getting home that I was sobbing in a boarding area, I felt defeated rather than empowered and glamorous or free.
When I started this job I needed it. I had little buds of growth but no real roots, I could go anywhere or do anything so I took a chance and became a flight attendant. I let them put me in a city so I didn’t have to choose where to go, and that’s how I learned what’s not to love about Dayton, OH.
For the love of everything, no more Ohio…
Then I was in Charlotte, then DC then I finally decided I couldn’t make a new home if I was never there. So i went to my first home, back to Rochester, and everything started falling in place.
No more wondering if I was where I was supposed to be.
No more wondering who my people were.
No more wishing I didn’t feel so damn alone.
I can’t look at everything properly yet, I’m still too close. But I plan to revisit it. I plan to tell my story in great detail so that people who hear about what airline life as a crewmember is like might get as angry as me sobbing in the terminal having no one to rely on, and realizing sometimes in this corporate cog I can get mangled by the teeth.
I’m forever glad I did it.
I saw 9 countries, ran half marathons in 5 states, moved 7 times. I saw countless friends in unique places around the world. I experienced what I thought was love but what turned out to be lessons. I broke a bone in two places, and it healed with enough care and rest...now I barely remember how much it hurt…
I have so many things I’m looking forward to.
No more kissing goodbye for a week or more,
No more abiding by archaic appearance standards.
No more repeating “cookies or pretzels” until my vocal chords bleed and the whole cabin is covered in diet coke.
And no more wondering if I’ve stayed so long that I’m not capable of doing anything else…
For now my feet will be on the ground. When I fly, it’ll be like the rest of the masses, and when I leave work at the end of the day I’ll drive a few minutes and be home. And the smile on my face will be honest and not for anyone else but myself.