When I was a little girl my life was hell. My parents drank and argued, screaming non stop. When we would go on vacation I would go in the gas station with my dad and pick up one of those Apartment Guides and read it from cover to cover, dreaming of the day I could leave that life and leave them. I was 6.

My grandmother had given me a kiddle, a little purse with a doll in a plastic bubble that was a stewardess and I so longed to be that doll. All I ever wanted was to be a stewardess but growing up I was too short (mom smoked and drank while pregnant with me).

When I was 21, I was waiting tables from 5 am to 1130, worked in a boys and girls club from noon until 6 pm and went to school M-Th from 630 -930 pm. A pilot was at one of my tables and we spoke about flying. I was holding the coffee pot in mid air when he asked if I wanted to be a flight attendant. The world stopped. The next week he came back in and I had my resume ready for him. I got a call from corporate and two months later I was a flight attendant, living in another city, far away from the family filled with hatred, settling in my very own apartment.