Good afternoon.
Today I sit in a different chair, at a different desk, to the same computer, in a different state. With a fancier logbook, and a higher security clearance, I report to the same document that I started seven years ago. Recently I've looked back at everything I wrote in high school, and there is one overt fact that stares me down the more I read: I have changed.
I've always found it humorous when people exclaim that people never change. Write something down, anything from a single thought to a year-long stream of your consciousness. Read it five or ten years later. You will not agree with every word. People change. It's unavoidable. People fall, people stagger back up. People ride highs, and a year later find themselves doing everything in their power to avoid lows. We may fight to hold on when our atmosphere changes around us, but then we become a plant that has failed to evolve and gets swarmed and defeated by the weeds that thrive between cracks in the concrete.
I married my wife in June of 2015. Four years prior to that, in high school, I wrote in her yearbook: "I have something very important to tell you on February 9th, 2018." High-school-Decker spoke in riddles. A lot of people at the time wrote it off as jackassery—something fun and intriguing to write in a girlfriends yearbook, assuming she'd be nothing but a distant memory in seven years. That was a fair assumption, knowing my lust for antics at the time. I did have something to tell her, however, regardless if we stayed together or broke up that summer, but that's between her and I.
I never forgot what I was going to tell her, but the significance of the date February 9th, 2018 slipped my mind for years until Doug reminded me one evening over bourbon. He claimed I confided in him to hold onto and remind me of this theory I'd come up with, as I was sure to forget the details. Apparently in high school I'd taken a long hard look at my personality, my tastes, passions, beliefs; and how they've changed. The theory was that there are peaks in life, coupled with periods of rapid change, experienced roughly seven years apart. The specifics of how I landed at this conclusion are long gone, but the conclusion itself remains intact: the first peak is at age 18 followed by rapid change in college. The second peak would be seven years later, at 25, when you're not just beyond college, but actively starting to travel your professional path. February 9th, 2018 was exactly two months before my 25th birthday.
To add further significance to February 9th, 2018 I attempted to predict my drop night as an Air Force pilot, as that would be the single most significant event in my professional life. I missed it by 3 weeks, which was impressive in my opinion. It still worked out, as the date ended up being the wing award ceremony at Laughlin, when Karen won her Key Spouse award. That coincidence seemed... uncanny.
I think I knew who I was seven years prior to that date. I think the first hundred-or-so posts in this document make that clear. For example one belief I long held onto in high school was that one day I would fly big planes and have a house in Florida. One day I'd pack a button-down, throw on a flightsuit, and jump in a jet with my friends to go to nightclubs on the other side of the country. One day I'd get paid to fly a plane and come home to a hot wife. Life was structured around "one day". A long time ago I was built on ambitions and daydreams to one day experience; I spent seven years anticipating the fantasy while enduring the wait with optimism.
And then, in total silence, the wait ended. February 9th, 2018 came and went months ago. I accepted my wings and took a picture in front of a Beechjet like I always knew I would. And then I actually forgot my birthday when I woke up and became 25 years old. I may have had insight about life's peaks and changes over seven years, but I made a damning assumption in the process. There are no fireworks when you reach the peaks. There are no road signs warning you of the changes coming and the speed bumps aren't painted yellow. You simply wake up in the morning, and you are 25 years old. And unless you made a note to remind yourself, Facebook will be the one to tell you about it.
Today is July 13th, 2018. I'm a rated and winged Air Force pilot, I get paid to fly big planes, and by the end of the year I'll be probably be flying myself from my beautiful house in Florida across the ocean to Turkey. If you piped through time to myself seven years ago, sitting in that squeaky wooden chair I hated in Hobbs' classroom, he would be taken away by that fancier logbook. He would tell you that I have made it and my life is bliss and I will never feel sad or frustrated or disappointed again in my life.
And he would be wrong. But I wouldn't hastily correct him.
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