Dan's first flight course freshman year took a year to finish instead of a semester. Apparently this isn't unusual for the first flight course at UND, but I was in shock upon hearing this information. This just doesn't happen too often at Richmond, if it ever does. The classes are just too damn expensive to do that. Just like there are more people who graduate in under 4 years than over 4. When you're paying $50,000+ in tuition per semester there's pretty good incentive to get in and get out. It made me more than a little nervous that he was planning to teach flying for a living yet struggled through the course to get his private pilot's license. I guess flying is a little more complicated than financial accounting...but still!
Needless to say, he did manage to finish that class the following semester and several more since then. However, it seems like he never managers to finish a course right at the end of the semester. Whenever I have expectations of him coming home on a specific day, I'm almost always wrong for one reason or another. Spending all of freshman year on 1 course set him behind a course already, so he decided to spend last summer at UND to take a flight course in order to ensure he could graduate on time. Clearly this was far from the ideal situation since summers were the only time we were actually in the same place, but obviously I wanted him to graduate this year. And realistically, I didn't know until May 16, 2011 where I'd be working permanently so it was hard to justify begging him to spend the summer in Chicago if I weren't going to be there. So he stays at school to take the flight course...and by some combination of circumstances is unable to finish the course by the time fall semester started so he had to skip taking the next flight course last fall. This means he still has 2 more courses to take going into the second semester of his senior year-and they can't be taken simultaneously. I was livid and only slightly mollified when I learned that the course he needed to take in the summer was offered the first 6 weeks so he'd still be home at the end of June. The course ends June 23rd so I told him I expected him back on June 24th for us to move in together starting July 1st (now July 7th but whatever, I don't want to move stuff out by myself either!). I spend months just looking towards this date..so focused on the fact that this is when we'll be together again.
I also informed Dan awhile ago that I wasn't willing to live together before we were engaged. So in my mind for most of the past year, that meant we had to get engaged over his graduation weekend. It was basically going to be the last time we were together before we were due to start our lease. So of course I start envisioning what this proposal will look like. I had it all planned out...as if it were my job to plan it. I knew exactly when he was going to do it, where it would happen, what he would say. Even figured out how/when I'd tell people about it. I dragged him to look at rings in North Dakota last November. Then reality sets in around March. I fall in love with an apartment that's a little more than we intended to spend, but we sign the lease anyways. He realizes that although he has a great lead on a job in Chicago, he really won't even know if there's an opening until sometime in the summer. We come to the conclusion that it makes more sense for him to use his savings towards a few months of rent if he's unemployed instead of a ring. So there goes that fantasy. And I had the perfect proposal planned out and everything....
Fast forward to last Tuesday aka a week ago. Dan has his first of two stage checks for his flight course. Stage checks are basically super hard and super long tests that you have to pass in order to complete a course/get a new certification. The first part is an oral test that lasts like 2-3 hours and the second part is a flight. Dan also doesn't tend to finish them on the first try but I know he's prepared a lot for this one and there's a lot of pressure to get it finished ASAP so I'm keeping my fingers (and pretty much everything possible) crossed for him. And then I get the text saying he doesn't complete it.
It's been a long time since I was that mad at him. I almost chucked my phone across the room. In a moment I changed from the super supportive, encouraging, you-can-do-it girlfriend to a complete bitch. I call/text Allison to rant which I always do when he incompletes a stage check or is going to be coming home later from school over breaks because he hasn't finished up flying. Blowing off steam to her helps me be nicer to Dan. But this time it just wasn't going to work. Worst case scenario: he doesn't finish the flight course in time to take the last course this summer and he has to go back to ND in the fall. Clearly that in no way, shape, or form fits in with life plans a-f in my mind. Honestly, isn't 5 years of long distance enough? Do we really need to add another 6 months?
So I became super bitch. Even ranting to Allison and Melissa didn't fix this one. I literally asked him if I could remove the PTO off my calendar for Friday and Monday (took days off to go up to his graduation last weekend...) assuming he wasn't going to be able to graduate. I turned my phone off. Drank half a bottle of wine. Cried. I felt a little better when I talked to my friend Christine who was pissed off at her husband so that's worse, right? Had an awesomely hard workout to chill out. Eventually I accepted it and was able to hold a rational conversation with him sometime the next day. He assured me he'd be able to get an extension for one reason or another (I've heard that before...) and he'd still be home in time to move. I didn't take the PTO off my calendar. Was excited to see him in a few days. All was well. When I talked to his best friend Matt at graduation, I learned that Dan went over to his apartment on Tuesday night. When I explained how furious I was about the stage check situation a look of understanding spread across Matt's face as he realized why Dan came over looking for pity from him-he sure as hell wasn't getting any from me. Now Matt will still be at UND for another 3 semesters (consequences of changing his major from aviation to accounting at the beginning of junior year) so Dan returning in the fall wouldn't be the worst thing that happened to him. Fortunately, he agreed not to do anything to encourage Dan to stay any longer than he absolutely had to. He probably didn't want to be on the receiving end of my wrath either firsthand or through Dan's mood again.
More to come on graduation weekend and the aftermath later this week...stay tuned!
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