Flying is for the Birds

I hate flying. Seriously, I would rather cut off my arms and legs and be a flopping bloody torso than fly. It's not that I've never tried it - I first flew when I was 5 months old. I've flown my whole life.

I tend to overanalyze everything so I tried to figure out why I hated flying. I'm not afraid of heights...nor of tight spaces. I think it's my aversion to falling 30,000 feet to my death. That and my distaste for terrorists (both domestic and foreign.)

I think it started when I was 9 years old. I was visiting my dad in California, and there was a huge thunderstorm during my flight home. The lights flickered in the cabin, and we were all over the night sky. I was petrified. We made it home safely but it left a terrified scar in my mind. As I look back, I realize that every time I flew after that incident I became more and more nervous.

Fast forward to high school. We were booked on a cruise and had to fly to Miami. I was of course petrified (side note: did my mother not know of sedatives???) so I visited a hypnotherapist who swore he could get me over my fear of flying. He "put me under" and instructed that when I was on the plane, I should touch my index fingers to my thumbs and then slowly separate them while exhaling slowly. It would relax me and remind me that I am not afraid to fly. He made a tape of the session, and I listened to it religiously.

The day finally came for us to leave for our dream cruise. As we sat on the runway, with the engines gearing up for takeoff, I closed my eyes and touched my index fingers to my thumbs. I exhaled and separated them and...nothing happened. My eyes flew open, and I started to panic. I tried it again...BUT NOTHING HAPPENED. As we taxied down the runway, I yelled to my mom who was sitting two seats up across the aisle, "MOTHER! IT'S NOT WORKING!!!" I displayed the opening and closing of my finger and thumb to show her it wasn't working. (If this had happened today, they probably would have aborted the takeoff and escorted me off the flight. I was quite...agitated.) But there was nothing I could do at that point. We lifted off...and I survived. We made it to Miami with my psyche barely intact.

We were having a FAB-TASTIC time on the cruise until...an airplane crashed. Yep. United Airlines Flight 232 cartwheeled onto the tarmac in Sioux City, Iowa. My mother turned from the television, took one look at me, and headed for the bar...where I think she stayed for the remainder of the trip.

We made it back home - though the flight was a blur (I think I've blocked it out?) I vaguely remember my mother pulling me through the St. Louis airport trying to catch our flight back to Peoria (again Ma...sedatives???)

Didn't really book any more trips after that. A few years later, I took the train to my aunt's house in Big Bear Lake, CA, for Thanksgiving. Her road ends at Snow Summit's parking lot - it's so fab. My cousin, Sarah, and I decided to go skiing. There hadn't been much snow so they had to make it - and only had an intermediate slope open (I'm a bunny slope kind of girl.) I didn't care - I was game. So we got on the ski lift to ride to the top of the mountain (btw, what a view! Just breathtaking...) I saw the bunny slope pass on my left. As we climbed higher, the ground suddenly dropped beneath us. That's when I knew.

"Sarah?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I know why I hate to fly."

"Oh yeah? Why?"

"Um..apparently I'm deathly afraid of being SUSPENDED IN MID-AIR!"

"Oh. Okay. Well, this is a good time to discover that, I guess."

That was it. I realized at that moment that I don't like to be suspended over...nothing. It makes perfect sense...I was afraid of bridges when I was young. In fact, the elevated walkway from the parking deck at Caterpillar used to give me the heebie-jeebies if I thought about it too much!

Now that I know my fear, I can begin to conquer it. I truly would like to fly again someday...and I will. It's just that first step that's so hard. But I have faith in myself that I will conquer my fear and get on an airplane someday soon.

Sedated, of course.