Dementia ~ Flying Into The Mountains At Night

If you don't trust your skills and your ride... stay home.

The Life And Times Of Brian Waddington

Back in the day I had to build up 150 hours flying time before I could try for my commercial ticket. It didn't take too long to get just a tad bored with local daytime trips. One of my flight instructors suggested doing some full moon night time sight seeing over the mountains. My reaction was shock. 

Over the mountains at night in a single engine airplane? His reaction to my reaction was that if I didn't trust my skills and the airplane then maybe it would be better if I stayed on the ground. Next time there was a full moon and a clear night I was off to the mountains. I loved it.

It never crossed my mind that there would come a time when my skills would be shot, the machinery would be unreliable and I'd have to go into the mountains. But that's where I'm at now. Actually that's not quite right. There is one other choice. I could die. As I'm not quite ready to find out if I, or my brother, or for that matter neither of us, is right about the after life I'll still take the old crate up and hope for a landing I can walk away from.

Moving away from the flying analogy...

This is becoming a solo ride. Not that I mind riding solo. Boats, airplanes, car, motorcycles, walks, jogs alone was usually my first choice. But alone by choice is not even close to alone by decree. 

No one can be beside me on this ride. That's just how it is. No one understands how another feels or thinks. The best one can have is compassion and that's not the same as understanding.  

Add to the above that talking is becoming more difficult. I slur, speak slowly, a little disjointedly and on occasion nonsensically. Which means that even people that like or love me can get really frustrated really quickly. 

The result of all of the above is that I'm spending more time with my dog, my camera and my computer. 

Such is the journey that I and millions of others are on.

Brian