Holding in Clear Skies
Issue #055
☕ Sunday Briefing
No checklist today just something I’ve been sitting with.
I have a brain that wants to make absolutely sure things will work out.
Not casually sure. Not hopeful.
Certain.
So I run scenarios.
I rehearse conversations before they happen.
I replay financial decisions in the shower.
I imagine worst case outcomes and build solutions for problems that are not even due for weeks.
What if the build goes over budget.
What if premium does not come through next month.
What if I miss something important.
What if I give them too much.
What if I do not give them enough.
Round and round.
It feels responsible.
It feels like leadership.
It feels like being a good dad.
Because when you have two little humans sleeping down the hall, your brain does not power down. It scans for threats. It calculates margins. It runs contingencies.
That instinct feels noble.
But it is exhausting.
A few nights ago The Captain was sitting next to me on the couch. She was talking about something small. Plans for the week. A detail about school. I heard her voice.
But I did not respond.
Not because I did not care.
Because I was running numbers in my head. Projecting weeks out. Solving something that was not even on the calendar yet.
She paused.
“You good?”
I blinked.
“Yeah, sorry. What did you say?”
She repeated herself.
I had been sitting right next to her.
And completely somewhere else.
The kids were in the other room. Laughing at something small and forgettable. The kind of noise that will not echo forever.
And I was mentally circling a future that may never even arrive.
In aviation, holding patterns are necessary when traffic stacks up or weather blocks the approach. You fly circles, burning fuel, waiting for clearance.
But holding burns fuel whether the storm ever reaches you or not.
The air can be perfectly smooth, and you are still orbiting.
There are days when I realize I have already landed something three times in my head. Already solved it. Already survived it. Already protected everyone from a version of reality that may never show up.
Meanwhile, life is happening at 500 feet below me.
And here is what I am slowly learning.
Missing the minutes that never come back is not a slow build toward safety.
It is a slow decline away from presence.
Preparation is not wrong. Planning is not weakness. Responsibility matters. Showing up as a father matters. Showing up as a husband matters.
But there is a line between leading your family and trying to control the entire sky.
Between being steady and being consumed.
Between protecting them and quietly disappearing while you think you are helping.
My kids do not need a father who has solved every possible future.
My wife does not need a husband who is mentally ten years ahead.
They need one who is here.
Maybe the event was not easier because I analyzed it to death.
Maybe it was easier because most things are survivable.
Maybe the storm never existed.
And maybe the real danger was not what might happen someday.
Maybe the real danger was missing what is happening right now.
Because no amount of preparation will buy back what I missed while I was preparing.
And that is fuel I will never get back.
⸻
Until the next leg,
Jake
First Officer, Dad, Human Trying Not to Stall