Ch Ch Ch Changes.....
I've been trying to understand changes (not the diaper type). More the life-style type.
A friend reminded me this week ....change is the only constant. It doesn't matter how old we are, what we do, how successful or poorly we do it. Change is here to stay. Forever.
Change seems to come easy when one is younger. What makes it so hard when we're not so young? Is there comfort in routine? The idea that we might have to think harder? The thought that we may have to acknowledge that we don't know it all? Would it be better to 'wait it out' by continuing to do something we aren't quite satisfied with?
When we got married, Carl and I decided we would work at what we wanted. We also were realistic enough to know that these jobs would also have challenges. Carl knew what he wanted since he was eight years old. He wanted to design boats. He did beautiful work and the boats were winners when they raced and gorgeous at the docks. He developed an amazing reputation. Another story.
I didn't have a clue about what I wanted but I knew I wanted to use my best gifts. I seemed to like checklists, organizing functions, making people feel at ease, and making something complicated become simpler by either showing it, demonstrating it, explaining it, or teaching it.
And I guess I had some smarts because I learned to fly, thanks to my husband, who took me to the glider airport in Fremont, where his dad knew the owner. Schuey, Carl's dad, taught Carl to fly. He was an airline pilot for Western Airlines. When Carl was about 23, his dad was killed during a training flight. I met Carl when he was 24.
While working around planes and gliders, I traded work time for flight time. Then teaching flying became a paying job, and then the fly boys and I could get our hours for free flying new planes to their new homes. Another story.
I saw the country from end to end several times from about 2000 feet over the terrain including the Rocky Mountains. When teaching flying and delivering new planes cross-country became a victim of the economy, a bunch of us took jobs to search out planes that needed to be repossessed from very unusual places and fly them home. Another story.
I will never know how much Carl must have recalled about his dad's love of flying: once I soloed, once I took my first cross country flight, once I got a commercial rating, once I got an instrument rating, once I got a multi-engine rating.
When he took me to the Chico Airport to put me on a plane as a co-pilot, to fly to Alaska to haul salmon in DC4s he was waving buh-bye to me with our small daughter and knew that I was pregnant with our son. (We decided the company I was working for didn't need to know about that fact until a bit later that summer and I had proven myself to the other pilots and management.)
But I gave up flying once we had two kids and I looked for something different to do. Again the grace of God. Another story.
That's when real estate came up. I could get another license to sell real estate, besides flying planes.
Once we began to make it in the real world, we both agreed that we would never formally retire. We went with the flow but we were also able swim against the tide.
We really liked, maybe even loved, our jobs - our jobs were our privileges! During one of the economic melt-downs we faced, Carl wrote a paper for a church association group about wanting to be productive, whatever that meant, in God's eyes. The yachting industry is hit hard when money for toys (boats and yachts) must to go towards basic living expenses, so he was feeling the pain, being a yacht designer. And by the grace of God, we worked though it all, once again.
Today...changes are here. When I read over what I've written, change isn't such a big thing. It's natural. It's embraceable. After 25 years with the same real estate company, I made a change six days ago. I moved my license to a company that seems to fit me better, for now.
I'm pleased. I'm excited. The one thing that hasn't changed is my desire to be better, the best.
(see www.marilynschumacher.com 5-23-13 to see exactly what I'm talking about.)
Live richly (never change that),
marilyn
A friend reminded me this week ....change is the only constant. It doesn't matter how old we are, what we do, how successful or poorly we do it. Change is here to stay. Forever.
Change seems to come easy when one is younger. What makes it so hard when we're not so young? Is there comfort in routine? The idea that we might have to think harder? The thought that we may have to acknowledge that we don't know it all? Would it be better to 'wait it out' by continuing to do something we aren't quite satisfied with?
When we got married, Carl and I decided we would work at what we wanted. We also were realistic enough to know that these jobs would also have challenges. Carl knew what he wanted since he was eight years old. He wanted to design boats. He did beautiful work and the boats were winners when they raced and gorgeous at the docks. He developed an amazing reputation. Another story.
I didn't have a clue about what I wanted but I knew I wanted to use my best gifts. I seemed to like checklists, organizing functions, making people feel at ease, and making something complicated become simpler by either showing it, demonstrating it, explaining it, or teaching it.
And I guess I had some smarts because I learned to fly, thanks to my husband, who took me to the glider airport in Fremont, where his dad knew the owner. Schuey, Carl's dad, taught Carl to fly. He was an airline pilot for Western Airlines. When Carl was about 23, his dad was killed during a training flight. I met Carl when he was 24.
While working around planes and gliders, I traded work time for flight time. Then teaching flying became a paying job, and then the fly boys and I could get our hours for free flying new planes to their new homes. Another story.
I saw the country from end to end several times from about 2000 feet over the terrain including the Rocky Mountains. When teaching flying and delivering new planes cross-country became a victim of the economy, a bunch of us took jobs to search out planes that needed to be repossessed from very unusual places and fly them home. Another story.
I will never know how much Carl must have recalled about his dad's love of flying: once I soloed, once I took my first cross country flight, once I got a commercial rating, once I got an instrument rating, once I got a multi-engine rating.
When he took me to the Chico Airport to put me on a plane as a co-pilot, to fly to Alaska to haul salmon in DC4s he was waving buh-bye to me with our small daughter and knew that I was pregnant with our son. (We decided the company I was working for didn't need to know about that fact until a bit later that summer and I had proven myself to the other pilots and management.)
But I gave up flying once we had two kids and I looked for something different to do. Again the grace of God. Another story.
That's when real estate came up. I could get another license to sell real estate, besides flying planes.
Once we began to make it in the real world, we both agreed that we would never formally retire. We went with the flow but we were also able swim against the tide.
We really liked, maybe even loved, our jobs - our jobs were our privileges! During one of the economic melt-downs we faced, Carl wrote a paper for a church association group about wanting to be productive, whatever that meant, in God's eyes. The yachting industry is hit hard when money for toys (boats and yachts) must to go towards basic living expenses, so he was feeling the pain, being a yacht designer. And by the grace of God, we worked though it all, once again.
Today...changes are here. When I read over what I've written, change isn't such a big thing. It's natural. It's embraceable. After 25 years with the same real estate company, I made a change six days ago. I moved my license to a company that seems to fit me better, for now.
I'm pleased. I'm excited. The one thing that hasn't changed is my desire to be better, the best.
(see www.marilynschumacher.com 5-23-13 to see exactly what I'm talking about.)
Live richly (never change that),
marilyn
Marilyn,
ReplyDeleteI love reading your blog and I do hope you write several of those "other stories" mentioned in this blog, some day, some time. Fun getting to hear what has transpired in your life since high school.
Stancie