The sky's the limit

But I knew exactly why piloting seemed so attractive. I love driving and I'm good at it. What's more, I'm not the type to do daredevil sports (well, any sports), so flying a plane is the most daredevil thing I thought I could actually do. I imagined myself competently winging through blue sky, radioing some obscure piloty jargon (joystick down, circle right, roger).

Now, if my story were a triumphed-over-all scenario, I could tell you that I got that pilot's licence and it changed my life. But I can't, although I did click on a flight-school's website once or twice before deciding that it was the idea and not the reality that drew me.

Wings of change
You see, what that rootless, romantic Katherine Anne Porter didn't say is that there comes a time in the life of almost every woman when she longs to be precisely the opposite of what she is. The undomesticated free spirit yearns for the house with a white picket fence and the ballast of family. And the woman whose boldest adventures take place in her head pines to experience the world in more physically exhilarating ways. Even modern women who love what they do know that longing; it is deep, visceral and insistent.

By dreaming aloud of a pilot's licence, I was facing my own terror: fear of not flying, of staying the same, of going nowhere. So it was actually a great moment, not sticky at all. Now I just need to figure out how to fly in my own idiosyncratic way. And whether, in case of emergency, the seat of my desk chair can be used as a flotation device.

(Learn about self-limiting beliefs that may be stopping you from your own life adventure.)

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