SWDITTBAAFP? Pt 3

"The only difference between pilots and wannabes is desire."

Joe sent those words to me as a praise, but it's now taken the form of encouragement. If it's true that a pilot is only as good as his last flight, then my latest flights have cast a long shadow over what I achieved earlier in the program. It's amazing how fast things can degrade. After 3 days of not flying for me and a demoralizing Monday morning for the class, I flew like I hadn't been in a cockpit for months. Yeah I could blame the rust and the wind and what not, but truthfully, I probably just didn't work hard enough for it. And I'm paying for that now.
I managed to somewhat redeem myself today in what would've been the last flight before my 1st check ride, but I blew two simulated forced landings (SFL), and my IP--bless her heart, in a weird kinda way--failed me on paper so I could get another chance to work on that before the check ride.
The check ride is a nerve-racking process. If you fail a regular ride, like I did today, you get two more lessons before you check. If you fail a check ride, you have two more chances (88 and 89) before you are eliminated.
Yes, eliminated. And if we thought they were joking about that, the past few days proved utterly humorless. I saw the pain in a classmate's face, a face that's obviously been crying for hours, after he failed his 89 ride this morning and stayed in his room the entire day (I would've, too). He forced a smile and said "That's life." I felt awful. That's a life of not being a military aviator, which some of us have wanted to do more than anything else for the entirety of our existence (I'm not one of them). He wanted it, that's why he is here. And now it's over, just like that.
I used to laugh along when people who don't know better say that the life of a pilot is easy. That may be, once you make it. Right now it's nail-biting hard work every day for 12 hours plus study time. And if we make it through here (already 4 out of 24 of us have either been voluntarily or involuntarily eliminated), we will have another even harder year and a half ahead before we earn our wings.
If desire separates those who make it and those who don't, I'm gonna have to dig deep everyday from now on and find that fire. Because obviously I haven't dug deep enough.

Less relevant:
I have never completely failed anything in my life. I'm not about to start here and now. Still, I'm pretty nervous right now about every upcoming flight, especially the check ride (probably Thursday or Friday), so I'm pretty motivated to work hard right now. Morale ->80%