Impossible?

Standing in the Rue Sainte-Catherine, Europe’s longest pedestrian shopping street, holding a bag of pastries outside of our light and airy loft we were renting for the week, I decided Bordeaux was one of my new favorite places. We met some lovely people, including a fifth-generation winemaker who was so welcoming at her family château that we left with as many bottles as we could take home.

But the French also have this abrupt way of speaking that felt a little off-putting. Granted, in the South, we tend to err on the sugary-sweet side. Even our insults are disguised as compliments. Bless her heart, and all that. So maybe I’m just biased. But here’s how it kept going over there: I would call a restaurant or vineyard to make a reservation, and if they couldn’t accommodate us, they would simply say, “It’s impossible.” No explanation or apology. Impossible. It sounds so final, like there’s no chance that the thing you were hoping for could ever happen. Sadly, I think we have a little bit of this “impossible” mentality in our own lives. How many times have you believed a door or opportunity was closed only to find out later that you just had to stand there and knock for a while?

Take my brother for example. Growing up, he wore these thick round glasses. The Harry Potter jokes were endless; they were practically twins. Anyway, one of his eyes never would quite correct to 20/20, so, my brother naturally assumed he wouldn’t be following in his father’s and sister’s piloting footsteps. It wasn’t until he flew to EAA AirVenture with me and saw that pilots come in all shapes and sizes that he started wondering if flying might be possible. He researched and, lo and behold, there are people in the sky with less than perfect vision. He did a SODA (medical flight test) with the FAA six months later, and the rest is history. He’s currently got his dream job, flying a Boeing 737 for Southwest Airlines.

In my early flight instruction days, I’m embarrassed to say that I thought you couldn’t fly while pregnant. Not sure why I believed that other than the simple fact I had just never seen anyone do it. I mentioned to a female pilot friend that my husband and I were thinking about starting a family but weren’t quite ready to put my flying dreams on hold. “Why would you have to do that?” she asked. “I flew all the way up until a month before I had the baby.” That was all I needed to hear. My oldest child logged several hundred flying hours before she was ever born. Did I take naps in my car in the parking lot between flights because exhaustion and nausea frequently kicked in? Sure. But I got to continue doing the thing I loved, which is something I hadn’t believed possible even a year before. In the same vein, I was recently chatting with a flight instructor friend while brainstorming this column. She said the entire aviation career was something she hadn’t seen for herself. Although her dad flew professionally, she thought flying was for men, or for women who didn’t want to be mothers. She took flying lessons anyway but pursued a career in respiratory therapy. It wasn’t until she got married and found in her husband a supportive partner that she realized maybe she could have it all. She flies full time now as she plans her next career move. Whether that’s the airlines or something more flexible that allows her to be a constant figure in her young son’s life, she feels grateful for the opportunity.

Or how about aircraft ownership? That’s for the wealthy elite, right? Here’s what my old boss would always say when I talked about wanting to buy an airplane: “How do you become a millionaire through aviation? Start out as a multimillionaire and buy an airplane.” My husband and I had two young kids and were just getting our careers started. I was neither a millionaire nor a multimillionaire. But the more I talked to people about it, I eventually found a friend who wanted to partner up. We ended up taking money out of home equity lines of credit to finance our respective halves and leased the airplane back to a flight school to help cover the regular expenses. Fifteen years and two airplanes later, I am still not a millionaire, but I’m an airplane owner!

I’m writing this message today because it’s the one I need to hear. I’ve completed a novel and have received so many rejections from various agents that I’m starting to feel my dream wither up and die. But I want to believe that nothing is impossible. And maybe you want to believe that too? Flying an airplane. Owning one. Making a career move. Publishing a book. Whatever it is, here’s hoping we can believe in ourselves for long enough to keep knocking at that door…and that it finally opens.

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