Back in the Boeing Again

I have now officially finished my first trip back to work.

Honestly, it wasn’t too bad. Pretty much my entire time away was a series of me thinking “I can handle this!” followed by “I can’t handle this!” – repeat ad nauseum.

It started with arriving in my domicile on Friday night, when I realized that this felt RIGHT. I was a Flight Attendant for a very long time before I ever met Darrel and had kids. My entire adult life, in fact, has been spent in airports, airplanes and hotels.

Walking through the airport in my uniform, dragging my insanely large caravan of bags behind me, felt so completely normal and natural it was eerie.

In the end, while I am many things in this world…I remembered that I am, in a very fundamental way, also a Flight Attendant.

This sort of job just gets in your blood and becomes a lifestyle. I honestly can’t imagine not being a Flight Attendant, even if only part time.

So I spent the night in the airport and reported for work Saturday morning, getting reacquainted with the new differences in my job and meeting my crew for the first time. This very first trip back to work I had to work as the lead Flight Attendant on the plane.

Yeah. I’ve been gone for 15 months and missed all the new things that happened, but I was in charge of making sure the flight ran smoothly and according to FAA and Company policies.

And you know what? I will boldly proclaim right now: I am damn good at my job. I know I dropped the ball on little things here and there, but overall I jumped into the deep end of the pool and swam like a fish.

It felt AWESOME.

This last year of dealing with so many uncertain issues in our lives, I often wonder if I’m doing a good job with any of it. So being on a flight and knowing down in my gut that things are going well and I’m doing exactly what I need to do was exhilarating. I was completely starting to believe “I can handle this!”

Then Saturday night, as I was just about to turn in and get some sleep, the phone rang. It was 2:00 a.m. It was Darrel, and Zac was screaming in pain in the background.

Long story short, I neglected to get rid of the milk I pumped between Zac’s birth and his hospitalization from the freezer and Darrel neglected to double check the dates on the milk he was feeding Zac when I left and so Zac was fed non-TED milk for the first 24 hours I was gone.

He was having an FPIES reaction. And I was in Boston. And I couldn’t do anything about it. And I felt alone and lost and angry and frustrated and bereft.

I started thinking through how I could get an emergency drop from the rest of my trip and how soon I could get back home, and completely started thinking that “There’s no way I can handle this!”

I lay in bed, unable to sleep, until almost 7:00 a.m. When I woke up in the early afternoon, Darrel and I spoke on the phone and he said Zac was much better now that he was eating safe milk again.

Crisis averted. Now to just survive getting back to baseline.

Sunday went well, and by the end of the day with Zac feeling better and my realization that I can “fake it til I make it” attitude and disposition-wise with the customers, I was back to believing “I can handle this!”

Monday was a long day, but I learned some disturbing things about my job. It seems that with the merger and personnel shifting that is going on, the base I’ve flown out of my entire career is being shrunk and slashed. If I stay where I am, I’ll wind up on reserve this fall.

I canNOT do reserve living.

For those unaware, reserve flying is where you are on call 24 hours a day for 20 days a month and have about 2 hours to get to the airport. When I was young and single, no problem. Married with sick kiddos? Not possible at all.

So I’m scrambling to figure out what to do. Ideally I could transfer to a new base with better flying and hold a good schedule for the month (because we all know the Summers family desperately needs the money), but my other option is to put in for a 5 month leave of absence the airline is offering this fall. Not a great choice, because we would then not have enough money to pay our bills, but then I could keep Zac alive…so, it is still a viable option.

I was struggling again, feeling like “I can’t handle this!”

And then the day ended with me in Seattle.

We went to the hotel, got settled in, and I went to sleep an hour past midnight. I didn’t set an alarm clock, thinking I would just sleep in. Turns out? My kids have apparently trained me to sleep no longer than 7 hours at a stretch. I woke up all on my own exactly 7 hours after I fell asleep.

Pre-children I would have slept 10 or more hours – easy. Oh, well!

So I got up, pumped, cooked my food, ate, got showered (without anyone screaming for me, joining me in the shower, or feeling any pressure to hurry it up because a child might need me at any minute – it was glorious!), dressed, and headed out to wander Seattle.

I love Seattle. I love the Pike Street Market, I love the weather, I love so much about just wandering around downtown Seattle. It’s a really great city and I always enjoy being there.

As it was my birthday (yes, I worked on my birthday – Happy Birthday, me! LOL), I treated myself to a mobile wireless hotspot to carry with me so I can continue to blog and stay connected on the road. (Thanks again, Liz! You’re awesome!) I meandered through the Pike Street Market and contemplated buying some fresh Alaskan Salmon before deciding I didn’t want to mess with that. I found an awesome toy store that I could easily have dropped a few hundred dollars at. Instead, I bought some supposedly “Safe” crayons for Jed to finally be able to color with!

I headed back to the hotel so I could pump and cook some more food before working the red-eye flight back to base, and I totally felt a spring in my step and a confident “I can handle this!” sink back in to my mind.

It’s felt a little schizophrenic the last few days.

As for the kiddos?

Jed apparently fell in love with “The Sound of Music” while I was gone. Zac ate about 50 ounces of milk per day. Darrel learned that the easiest way to get both kids down for bed at the same time was to take them on a car ride until they crashed out. Mom and Dad had fun (and got worn out) chasing the kiddos and teaching Jed how to fish in their new pond, shell peas, and even tried to start potty training him.

Both kids were excited when I called on the phone to talk with them, and Jed even asked for me to come home on Monday night! The best, though, was when I first talked to Jed on Tuesday morning and he said “HAPPY BIR-DAY, MOMMY!” Melt my heart, why dontcha, kiddo? So stinkin’ sweet!

And while all this craziness was going on, I made some phone calls and got some calls returned and finally managed to find a local source of lamb meat for Zac, which I will pick up as soon as my flight lands in Arkansas on Wednesday morning.

It was hard being back to work in a lot of ways, but the kids had a great time with Grandma and Pop Pop and Daddy. I had a great time talking to other adults in real-world settings. I enjoyed taking showers ALONE without PRESSURE to do a ‘boat shower’. And I’m earning a heckuva lot of money for my family, which, in its own way is a very distinct part of “taking care of my kids”.

So the truth about returning to work, y’all?

I can handle this.