“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.” —Joseph Campbell
Finishing strong helps me let go and look forward with joy. I am writing this just a few days before the New Year of 2024 dawns from our hangar home in Texas. Well, it is not really ours anymore, as we sold it on December 1st. The new owners gave us a generous amount of time to move out, so yhis is the first of several trips we will make over the next few months.
Finishing Strong By Letting Go
This has been a beloved place for me. A safe home away from home while working out of the Fort Worth area for the last ten years of my career. Since I retired, it has been a retreat from which to fly, write, and simply get away.
Building it was a leap of faith, a learning curve that stretched us, and ultimately provided the perfect home away from home. To say I enjoyed this place is an understatement. There was nothing like waking up on a Saturday morning to aircraft engines revving, throwing on some flying clothes, and grabbing my coffee to head out for a morning flight. To look out my second-story window into the hangar to see airplanes waiting is special.
Yes, it is hard to let it go, but it is time. I moved my airplanes closer to my home in Wichita a few years ago, so now it is a 30-minute drive to the airport. No big deal, but not quite the same.
Finishing Strong, Transition And Reset
In reflecting on 2023, the one word that comes to mind is transition. There seems to be a lot of
repositioning going on all around. Transitions require the ending of one season to enter another. For us, this has, in addition to selling our hangar home, included:
- Being released from Cancer Treatment Centers of America with a clean bill of health
- A second book on Tripler family history released
- Three of the
- four wings on the EAA Biplane completed
- Getting through some major plumbing issues at Maison Steinbuchel and completing repairs on a retaining wall knocked over in July 2022!
I continued serving on the Community Advisory Board with PBS Kansas but stepped down as the Chairperson after three years. 2024 begins my fifth year as an advocate for Mission Aviation Fellowship
David continues teaching at Concordia Academy Wichita and Northfield School of the Liberal Arts. The academic year schedule keeps us close to home, but home projects and gardening provide great joy and satisfaction.
With the sale of the hangar home and the need to travel regularly, however much I enjoyed this, AND the constant follow-up protocols with CTCA behind me, I plan to get my teeth back into the projects here at Maison Steinbuchel. Stand by for stories as I dive in!
I pray that 2024 will bring new adventures and stories to write. Let’s record those adventures to share!