Walking down the long hangar hallway, I felt the butterflys in my stomach leap. I tried to shake them loose by rolling my shoulders back and tapping into my most confident stride, my flight boots making an authoritative thud with each step toward the office door. I was a successful senior Lieutenant in the squadron and I was feeling confident. I knew there was a chance I had the number one performance evaluation, a coveted and valuable piece of paper to make a career fly, so to speak. I held all the qualifications, was the lead instructor pilot in the unit, and was in charge of the quality assurance division during a major maintenance inspection which we passed handily.
Despite my confidence, I was still a little nervous as I headed into my skipper’s office. The Navy Commander had 15 years experience on me and I still felt intimidated by him, even though he always treated me like an equal in the cockpit and on the ground.
He gave me permission to have a seat at his conference table, and with his wiry frame looming over the table, he placed my fitness report in front of me.
“I’ll give you a chance to look it over. Let me know if you see any mistakes, or have any questions.” He ambled to the other side of the table and took a seat, looking deftly inconspicuous as I read the report.
The ranking and evaluation write-up is on the back page of a Navy fitness report, and not wanting to look too eager, I took my time soaking up the administrative information on the front, checking dutifully for typos. None found, I turned over the newly printed page, my eyes darting to the bottom, where the most important ranking of my early career would land.
Number two.
I was the second best Lieutenant of 28 others in the Navy helicopter squadron. I wasn’t number one, but also importantly, I wasn’t less than number two. I was ecstatic. I skimmed the write up above, looking for typos and not really letting anything else in. Those write-up sections were a mishmash of buzz words made for a system I was destined to never fully understand.
Glancing up, I grabbed a pen and signed the document. “It looks good, no typos to fix.” I slid the paper to the commander.
“Do you have any questions?” He nudged, was that an eyebrow raised?
From this point, the scene fades out, the way memory will occasionally, but it snaps back into sharp focus when he says,
“You’ve really got to take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves to you.”
I think this was a response to me asking for constructive feedback on how I could have been number one but I honestly don’t remember.
These words have stuck with me because I still ponder what it means. The specifics of what he was talking about I don’t think I’ll ever know, though I can guess. Perhaps I didn’t do as well on that inspection as I should have. Maybe I should have asked to get a follow on assignment at a more ‘on-path’ unit, flight instruction or teaching at the weapons school. Surely he didn’t think I should have pushed harder when he told me not to try to get into the special forces helicopter squadron because he was “pretty sure they don’t take women”.
The specifics of the memory don’t really bother me anymore. I don’t wonder if I did something wrong in his eyes, or if I’m missing some grand idea that everyone else seems to get. What bothers me about these words is the advice itself. The advice that life is going to come at you fast, and if you decide to let an opportunity pass you by then you’re failing stikes a nerve for me. This never sat right with me, because at what point do I have agency over what is being done? When do I get to choose what the next best thing is?
Zooming out twenty years later, I can see that most times when I was shown a path to follow in my life, I’ve looked for an alternate route. A way through the woods where someone has gone before, but nobody remembers who. In my life, this began in high school when applying for colleges. Guidance counselors showed me the financial aid documents, but instead, I found a college that didn’t require financial aid. Despite my friends informing me that sexism did exist, and was in fact, quite dangerous in the wrong setting, I still joined the military. Though I could have applied to fly for Delta Airlines after the military, instead I applied to academia, starting at the bottom of a ladder I didn’t know the first thing about. I can probably come up with a dozen instances where I actively avoided opportunities presented.
Consciousness about my choices didn’t surface until the end of graduate school. At the beginning of graduate school, some large life changes developed. I got divorced and faced an income-free future if I didn’t take advantage of opportunities that were being handed to me. Yet, at this point in my life I was starting to notice that I had a lot of hesitation with walking the path presented to me. So, instead of applying for the postdoc positions that would surely have been mine if I had wanted them, I actively chose not to participate in the competition for grants and employment that was my next step on my career ladder.
Instead of a postdoc, I chose a gap year. The divorce, a surprise military deployment, and the intensity of preparing for a PhD defense were showing their toll on my body. Sleepless nights, weight loss, and a general interest in almost everything except alcohol and netflix all pointed to the fact that my nervous system was fried and required some time off for regulation. So after some therapy and another deleted email containing a recommended application, I decided I had to draw a line in the sand.
My advisor was a bit of a God figure. Calm, measured, and wickedly intelligent, he leaned back in his desk chair and pondered what I told him. I wouldn’t be applying to any postdocs, or writing any grants. I planned to take a year off, live out of my car, spend time in nature, and with those I loved. I was going to recalibrate.
“How luxurious”, he commented. — what a privledge
Maybe he meant it snidely or maybe he meant it genuinely. Most grad students would be unable to afford to be unemployed immediately after defending their dissertation. I walked out of his office unsure of myself, and wondering if I was just an entitled brat.
Despite my shaken confidence and his apparent judgement, the choice to take a year off was in-line with my values. Looking back, I hope I would make the same decision again. When I think about participating in the academic community in the way that typically is done, my insides start to feel squirmy. Unaligned innards and a sense of dread plops down on top of me like an obligation that refuses to budge.
During the last months of my PhD, my partner and I converted a short school bus into an RV, using money I had saved from my unexpected deployment. After I finally defended my dissertation, we set out on the road, not to explore but to reconnect. We visited friends and family, we hiked well travelled trails, we sat naked in natural hot springs at midnight. The water on my skin made me remember I was alive, and the lack of deadlines or expectations was luxurious and life restoring.
In the time since that dedicated year of rebirth, I’ve rejoined society in ways different from before. While I do have a job, it’s part-time and remote, allowing ample time to pursue my more creative instincts, or linger in nature when it calls. My time-off realigned what the value of money actually means to me, which is a balance between being able to survive and actually living. Trading all of my time for money seems like a fools errand in which I will no longer participate. I now understand that I am tired of competing for value. Instead of competition, I want contribution.
It isn’t all clarity. There are still moments when I question my decisions. I have chosen not to pursue paths that would have led to easy wealth, along with the lifestyle tradeoffs that came with it. Friends I grew up with in the Navy now make significantly more money than I do, though many of them spend weeks away from their families at a time, or long hours in offices they will never get back. I’ve met up with old friends who now fly for the airlines, earning many times what I make, and because I’ve always been someone who talks openly about money, they tell me exactly how much they earn. It stings. I have to consciously resist the quiet urge to translate their income into a measure of my own worth. I remind myself, again and again, that the net worth and net wealth are not the same.
When I return to myself, I remember what I am building. I am learning how to care for myself, and express my love for nature. I am choosing presence over prestige, time for myself over titles. I am trying to model a life that values curiosity, creativity, and wholeness more than constant upward progress. I continue, deliberately, on this less-traveled path. Sweaty, imperfect, and slowly cutting through vines with persistence and love, guided by intuition instead of career plans. Other wanderers like me exist, I know that. But no one else is walking these exact steps. More and more, traveling this unworn path feels less like an opportunity lost, and more like freedom gained.
References
This reminds me of 🌳 🌿 What I want to be when I grow up How affirmative action made me less able to climb the ladder)