Tomorrow Never Comes

　
As long as I can remember, I have always tried to avoid the word “never”. I guess I learned early on that once you say never, it won’t be long before it comes around to bite you in the butt. So, like most people I know, we use the word never, not for something that we know will not ever happen, but for things that we think could possibly happen, but probably won’t. Stay with me here. For instance, as a young male in high school, in my mind there were certain things I knew would “never” happen. Things like going on a date with the prettiest, smartest, and most popular girl in the school, which in my school, happened to be three different girls. I knew that would never happen, but somewhere in that part of my teenage hormone infested brain I still hoped that it would. Never happened. Or I knew I would never be the star football player, but again, somewhere in another part of my also ego infested brain, I hoped. That too never happened.
Today I am sitting in a part of the world that is far from my home and realizing that maybe I should change my attitude about “never”. I know I have mentioned before that things happen very slowly here, at least in this part of Turkey. Even the Turkish people make jokes about “tomorrow”. Nothing seems to happen today, but always tomorrow. The latest and current situation now is that I have been waiting on “tomorrow” for the last three agonizing weeks to begin flying again. I waited six weeks when I got here for all the formalities to be dealt with, processed, scanned over, faxed, couriered, slept on and whatever else they do to “validate” a foreign pilot. It finally happened and I began flying the very big balloon in this beautiful place. Life was good. For 30 days. And then all of a sudden, because the company I work for changed it’s name, myself and the other foreign pilot, have to be re-validated by the Civil Aviation Authority. Which means we can not fly again until, once again a piece of paper has to be processed, scanned over, faxed, couriered, and slept on. And I think, but not quite sure, that it is now in the sleeping on it stage. And whoever is doing that has settled in for a long winter’s nap. I have been told almost every day for the last three weeks that it will be completed “tomorrow”.
Yesterday I was assured, without a doubt, that I would fly today. I guess nobody told the guy sleeping on my paper work, because this morning I was not flying the very big balloon, again. There is a “rented” Turkish pilot flying my Green Goblin while we are waiting for tomorrow to come. I have tried to be patient and understanding and have even gone out to help and support the team every morning while I am waiting. I am not a patient person, but have been working on that while living here, out of necessity mostly. Either that or end up in a Turkish prison for a very long time, so I’m really trying.
So here I am, waiting for tomorrow. And I don’t want to think that it will never come. I could get a call today with the news that everything is complete and I am cleared to do what I came here to do. Fly very big balloons in Turkey. I am not holding my breath, but remain hopeful. Maybe tomorrow.