Dear me,

Decker,

Control is a desirable thing. Whether it's using a conversation as it's a helm at the bridge to control what's being said, whether it's manipulating your way into the more favorable assignments at work, or simply deciding what to eat in the middle of the night, control is something I very much enjoy having. Because of this, I don't understand how I spent the past short part of my life letting something control me.

Knowledge is another desirable thing. And in the quest to know everything until you actually do know everything, but can't always remember it all in the same point in time, I've come to realize there are things that are not desirable to know. Like how it feels to be arrested, or if I'm smart enough to actually get away with absolutely everything. I just don't care to know. 

I've been crying for days. I've been drinking for weeks. But for some reason, some odd circumstance arose as I laid awake at 5:00 in the morning: it's time. It's time to write a letter to myself. It's time to change.

I haven't done this in a while. I honestly think the last time I wrote a letter to myself was in high school was when Marissa stopped texting me back, and months later I found out it was because she was grounded. Isn't that strange? I got so broken and down and out of the fight that I sat and write a letter to yourself, something to look back to, something to cling to as you fight for life in the bitter world we call our own. And then, in six months, you go back to it. You read the letter you wrote, and realize how stupid this shit is. She was GROUNDED, of course she didn't text you back. There was just information in the world that you didn't happen to know at the time that would've walked you off the ledge had you known.

I've been listening to a lot of music lately. I know that military training has the tendency to do that, but this time it feels different. It's a lot of Phill Collin's music by the title of "that's all" and "I don't care anymore." I scream the lyrics from my car; I want people to hear it. "Oh it's just a shame, and that's all."

But in a day, maybe it was the sleeping pills, maybe it was my will to survive, I can't tell; but one night the music went from "Oh it's such a shame" and "I don't care anymore", to "it's time to move on" and "lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you." I broke down crying, maybe at the transition, maybe at the new lyrics. But maybe now it's time to forget how to play on piano "that's all", and learn "fix you."

Maybe now it's time to eat. Maybe it's time to sleep. Maybe it's time to fix my entire world that I inadvertently destroyed. It won't take a day, it won't take a week. But it's time. Time to fix me.

I can do it. I've done it before. I've done RIDICULOUS shit before. I've landed planes in thunderstorms and 50kt winds. I've graduated an engineering school where we were tested on how electrons move through semiconductors. I've done pilot training - OVER A YEAR OF IT. I've been fucking tortured. Let that soak in. I, W Decker Loyd, have been tortured. So why let this feel worse?

So I will definitely fly again. The Air Force will understand the hiccups along the way. I've been trained in acute communication, I know what to say if they don't quite understand. But motherfucker, I will fly again.

The sun is coming up. Slim blue light is starting to gloss over my pool and pond. Soon the sandhill cranes and blue herons will wake up and make their presence known. Soon Cessna's, British Airways triple sevens, and KC-135's alike will be flying overhead. My house isn't going anywhere. My wife isn't going anywhere. My wings aren't going anywhere.

You aren't losing anything. Just the time it takes to heal. And then, when it's all done, when you read this very letter in how ever long it is, and chuckle over A) how poorly written it was and B) how unnecessary it was; you'll pack up your flight bag, flight suit up, and fly across the world.

And life will be good again, as it always has been.