46. Spaceland Start- March, April, May

I'm sitting in the Spaceland video room right now, months after this spring, and it's crazy to look back a the start of all of this. Houston/Spaceland is now a home. When it started 5 months ago, I didn't know 1 person- everything was so foreign, unknown and unstable. Each day, I am grateful to have somehow landed at Spaceland in March. No exaggeration, every single person on the staff here welcomed me as family. The fun jumper community was also amazing. I have never seen such an impressive group of skydivers as Spaceland. Of all the drop zones I could have ended up at, I am forever grateful it was Spaceland for this chapter.

After traveling the world, a lot of it by myself, I had this false impression, that nothing new would challenging. Wrong, obviously ;) but through those adventures I gained a self power which I definitely felt and needed in this step. I was so focused on the skydiving dream, I was willing to do anything to make it work. Spaceland had hired me but I still had to prove myself to be allowed to teach AFF and shoot video. This required doing a check-out AFF dive with an examiner followed by 6 test AFF jumps with students and another instructor. The program here is all solo instructor jumps, adding testing to make sure we're all capable. For video, I had to learn their way of doing it and show photos and videos to their standards. I paid rent with a 4 month lease before getting approved for work- definitely adding pressure. After the FL chapters, I had a fire in me to fight no matter what. Never, ever, did I imagine I'd be doing this skydiving step solo but that's life and I was determined to succeed.

All of the AFF test jumps went smoothly- within a month I was approved for AFF and then soon after for video. In this process, I gained my big brother Chris at the dropzone who supported me through all the testing. I thank my friends here for all their help and guidance these first months- with video, AFF, adjusting to a new place and making a new home.

The challenges? It is a chapter of my life where I fought the hardest for a dream. Since it was so unplanned to end up in Texas, at first I had no car and just a small suitcase of belongings. That meant biking 7+ miles each day in the Texas heat for the first 2 months in order to get to work. Every emotion came out during those bike rides. It was the hugest relief when my car arrived from NH, filled with more belongings and presents from my family. Spaceland has a training program (STP), similar to AFF but more extensive. Learning that and their video guidelines was a new challenge- where I wanted to immediately meet their high quality expectations. Originally not knowing anyone, not having a support system here, was much harder than I ever imagined. A broken heart from my previous relationship made it especially hard to face these challenges- more than words can say. I thank my family and home best friends for the extra love through these first months here.

The reward? I ended up working at a world-class dropzone with the very best community. We train the most new skydivers in the world and half of the tandems get outside video. The aircraft, equipment and facilities are exceptional. The management and staff are incredibly supportive of each other. There is no where else I'd rather be for this adventure. (No not an ad for Spaceland ;) ) I gained an immense amount of strength from being on my own, for fighting against the logical path of going back to corporate, for regrouping from a hard chapter, creating a new home and following a dream. For the first time in my life, I love my work and feel extremely passionate about it. I am excited to come to work each day. I feel a much healthier, happier self than when I arrived in March.The ranch gave me a safe place to process the year of traveling while focusing on my next skydiving goals. The first 3 months were a huge time of adjustment, which then opened up one of my favorite life chapters.