I used to fly for a living.

I'd dreamed of it since I was a boy. Part of that was the adventure, and part of it was wanting out. Home wasn't an easy place to be, and getting into the air felt like the closest thing to freedom I knew.

It took years to get there. I mowed lawns and pulled weeds and, with some help from my parents, got my private license while I was still in high school. Through my twenties I instructed, flew scenic tours over the Canyonlands in Utah, and hauled mail through the dark in small planes over Wyoming and Colorado, slowly building the hours until I finally landed a job at a regional airline. By my thirties I was a captain. I had everything I'd spent all those years reaching for.

And underneath it, I felt like an imposter. Like something was wrong with me. Like I wasn't quite deserving of any of it, and it was only a matter of time before someone found out. I didn't have language for that then, so I tried to outrun it instead, and mostly got in my own way. Close relationships were hard to find, and harder to hold onto..