The mere mention of the word “plane” makes me uneasy, and uncomfortable. This happens because it makes me think of how I am on the ground, and not if the world in which I belong. Flying has been the main goal in my life since infancy. My parent told me stories of how I always wanted to be on their shoulders, and how much I liked to be thrown up in the air and caught. My father said he would do this till he couldn’t lift me above his head. This passion was fully realized the first time I went on a plane. This was before 9/11 so there was only a curtain between the hull and the cockpit, which I figured out very quickly. I was in the cockpit for 3 hours before my father dragged me out as I screamed bloody murder. From that point on I knew what I wanted to do, fly. When I say “wanted to do” I don’t mean as a job, but as my life. A more literal definition of my, now obsession, is that I left my soul in the sky, I felt complete. Every second I am on the ground is a second I am not in the air.

     Soon after gaining the want to fly I found out that there were these smaller, faster planes that could shoot and blow stuff up. That wielded my two favorite things into 1 golden package, flying and the military. When I made up my mind about joining the air force I was 7 years old. My acquired my first remote controlled airplane for my next birthday, but it was lacking the adrenaline and excitement of a real plane. So next, I tried model rockets which kept my attention for awhile; the pride I felt when I saw the rocket disappear into the clouds was staggering. I thought to myself “there’s no way any airplane can beat my rockets”. Soon I learned my measurements in school, and I started imagining how long a mile was. I looked up how high fighter planes could go, and I found out they could go 30 miles up. “30 miles!!!!! That’s it!?!” I thought to myself, “I bet my rocket could go 100 miles!”. It was upon looking at the box that I found out that the altitude as measured in feet not miles. In a desperate panic I asked my dad what that word meant; hoping that altitude was how far away you can be to launch it. Of course he said no, and I cried for 2 hours before settling down. I felt betrayed, as if my hero had let me down. I eventually got over it, but the excitement I felt launching rockets never returned.

     The next 5 or so years passed with no major encounters with my fleeting angel, other than the rare air show or the uncommon sight and noise of a passing plane. I did many a projects, posters, drawings too, but not though my words could I describe it. Not though my hand nor tongue, not even my mind. Though my soul, say I. My soul lent me its desire and I lent it my body. When I think of flying it is only my soul who receives the satisfaction, while I receive only a sliver of the felicity that it closely fondles. When I jump from an object, ride on a roller coaster, or even accelerate in a car I receive physical delights that can replicate being on a plane, but void is the pleasure for my soul is inactive. It feels not the push of gravity, but the deceitful trickery of nature. In both ways the message is dauntingly clear. I cannot live without the assurance that someday I will fly again. I mean this in the most literal sense of the phase; I left a portion of my soul in the sky, a permanent spur on the side of heavens… my heaven.