I think dreams matter. I really do.  I’ve read so much about working toward something that feels huge, almost out of reach. And I’ve read all the advice about breaking it down into small steps and celebrating each one along the way.

But what I don’t see people talk about very often is how hard it is to actually stay with it. Some days it feels like those little steps will never end. Like you’re walking and walking, and the thing you’re aiming for keeps sliding farther away. There are days that feel heavy, and weeks that feel endless. And honestly, there are moments when giving up sounds easier than trying again.

Then somehow you finally get there. You reach the thing you’ve been working toward. And instead of feeling nothing but relief, you run straight into a new challenge you didn’t expect. You barely get a chance to enjoy what you accomplished before something hard shows up right in the middle of the dream.

And that’s where I’m picking up the story today.

That moment when you thought the hard part was over, but it turns out it was just getting started.

It was still the summer of 2006, and we were exhausted, but so excited about the future. We had made it through the grueling year of training and the extra year of instructing to get enough hours for a commercial airline job. We had gone through the interviews, and Jeff had been to Dallas for the long stretch of training for the Embraer 145 regional jet he would be flying. We packed up our sparsely decorated apartment, moved to Alabama, found a rental, and settled in. At night, we would lie in bed dreaming about what the next months and years might look like.

We were so naive.

We had done all the research on how pilots get paid and what to expect, but nothing we read matched the reality that hit us. I cannot even begin to explain how the pay system works. It is complicated, like any hard relationship. As we were reminiscing about those early days while I was writing this, neither of us could believe how unaware we were of what flying would actually do to our lives.

When Jeff finished training for the plane he would be flying, he would be assigned a base. Yes, every plane has its own in-depth training, which I did not know until he went to Dallas. The base is the city he would fly in and out of for any given trip. Remember, we were living in lower Alabama, and his very first base was New York City. Yep. NYC. We understood most new first officers ended up there, but somehow the reality hit harder than the knowledge. You know what I mean.

And we made so little at that point. We had run headlong into this new career with almost nothing in the bank, just trusting that God would provide. And He did. But that did not mean it was not hard. Most new hires rented a crash pad, basically an apartment room full of bunk beds where crew members can sleep and shower. Nothing fancy. Just a bed and a bathroom shared by lots of other pilots. But we could not afford even that. So Jeff had to figure out how to be based in New York while living in Alabama.  For the next fifteen years, he would be known as a “commuter,” someone who does not live where they are based.  Meaning they have to catch a flight to and from work every week.  Imagine having to depend on a flight to get you to and from work each week, that’s the level of stress he lived with.

When he was scheduled to fly a trip, the trip would include overnights in other cities, and the company would provide a hotel room for each crewmember, but sometimes he would have a night where he was not flying and still had to stay in New York because he was on the schedule the next day. And when you cannot afford a hotel or a crash pad, what do you do? You find the crew room and sleep in a recliner. Good thing he was young and resilient. He always said those recliners leaned back pretty far, and the room generally stayed dark and quiet. Honestly, he slept great in there. The Lord provided, and I believe He even made sure Jeff got the rest he needed.

Then there was the food situation. There was no way he could afford to eat out every meal. Most hotels did not offer free breakfast, but when they did, watch out. He would eat enough to last the whole day. After a lot of trial and error, he finally found the perfect food that traveled well and fit his life. You want to know what it was? The cheapest, most basic thing you can imagine: tuna fish. He carried cans of tuna and small packets of mayonnaise so he could mix them up in his hotel room. He discovered peanuts and craisins were great together, and he always had a bottle of water. To this day, on every trip he has taken, he still eats tuna and nuts. The nut mix has gotten a little healthier as he’s gotten older.

Meanwhile, I was settling into our rental, starting a new job, substitute teaching on my days off, shuttling the kids everywhere, and trying to make a home. Jeff was gone eighty-five percent of the time, and most nights I fell asleep right along with the kids out of sheer exhaustion. Our paychecks were tiny, and I felt so let down by what I thought would be some of the best days of our life. It just was not what I expected.

But what do you do with that? How do you tell the people who prayed for you and supported you and gave what they could to help you that it was not what you thought it would be? In my case, you do not. I kept a good front and tried to smile, even though it felt like life had gotten even harder than the years we spent trying to get here. It was a serious disappointment for me.

For Jeff, it was different. Even in the hardest times, and trust me, those were really hard days for him, he missed us terribly. Nothing prepares you for the days and weeks you spend away from your family. Nothing prepares you for tuna fish every meal or peanuts every day. Nothing prepares you for living out of a suitcase, or for the ache of knowing your family is struggling while you are hundreds of miles away. He prayed about all of it.

But even with all of that, he would put on his uniform and tell me it still felt like a dream. When he was up in the air, he felt like he was exactly where he was supposed to be. Sometimes it felt like we were living two different lives, and I guess in a way we were.