Travel

I hate traveling. Travel instills an angst in me like nothing else life has thrown at me, expect maybe childbirth. I internally agonize over what to bring, what not to bring, how to baby wrangle my children for hours on end and then, of course, there is the flight itself. The dread and fear that wraps itself around my gut until the plane lands is paralyzing. And the thought of flying begins to paralyze me days before I'm anywhere near an airport. Flying frightens me enough that I am scared for others when they fly. Terrified something will happen to someone I love or care about on an airplane.

It wasn't always this way. As a child and a teenager, I was fine flying--even liked it. But not now. Not for the last 10+ years. Even the thought of flying haunts me, because inevitably, the thought of flying leads to the thought of falling out of the air in a tin can and crashing and burning a horrid death. Morbid, I know. Highly unlikely, I know. Safer than car travel, which I love, I know. I know the statistics. I am well read and educated on exactly how safe air travel really is. I have two very good friends, who are both air traffic controls at the Frankfurt airport--one of the world's busiest airports. My hometown of Renton, is home to Boeing and it is with the labor and skill of my neighbors that the planes we fly--fly. None of that helps. None of it.

It is, I have decided, a control issue. I am a control freak. I know this. I don't like it but it is the truth. I want to be in control at all times. To know that I *could* do something if I had to at the time when something goes wrong. None of that is possible flying. It is my job to "sit back and relax," as if. As my husband, "rides the wave," of turbulence, I am left gripping my arm rest so tightly, I'm sure it will break under the pressure of my unwavering grip. Left to deal with flight attendants, who all too politely explain, "it's just a pothole in the sky! We'll be out of it in no time." Their chipper shrug does nothing to calm my nerves, rather, it only serves to annoy the hell out of me--but as with everything else in flying, there is not a damn thing I can do about it. Nothing I could say would adequately express my fear of traveling at 35,000 feet above the water.

But if I don't go, I will never experience the richness that is travel. The beauty and variety of otherness that every place but home has to offer. All of my senses recognized this, which is why I go. The lure of otherness that every place has to offer is so far just greater than my irrational fear of flying. But it is always a close call. Always. As I board our flight this morning, I will try to keep the otherness of Hawaii in sight. Aloah!