This Ain't Maggie's Farm: Up in the Air

I had to fly again.

Vomit.

It’s a very introspective time, flight. One internal voice is all, everything dies and that’s sad, what is the nature of fear, what is the value of my life, blah blah blah. The other is all, science and the

Like this but with hyperventilation

universe are amazing, how does this even work, the same laws of physics that keep me in the air take people to space and move the planets and the stars. One piece is all wide-eyed joy at the view, the experience, the world, the universe. The other is crouched in a tight, slobbery ball just….screaming. It’s fine.

Some thoughts that have profound meaning when terrified: isn’t it interesting that your fear will neither keep you in the air nor make you fall? This thing that moves you so profoundly has nothing to do with whether the plane works, or physics, or how your pilots are doing. It completely permeates your interior world.

But it is just you. (This awareness, in a slightly bolder shade, is like the jet fuel for everything I’ve ever brought myself to do that I was soul-quakingly insecure of.)

Related concept, because it is just you, and interior, it is approximately the only thing you have control over in the situation. And like…all these other people are doing fine (ok, most of them). These pilots and flight attendants do this

This is how that realization feels.

100 times a day and look at them, just living their lives and being at work and not just NOT being terrified, but being kind of bored about it.

Which means being in this situation without consuming, heart racing, spontaneous-crying-creating anxiety is an option.

“So maybe,” wise interior voice, we'll call her "Stan", counsels, “consider giving that a try.” Which I do! And I learn an interesting thing about myself:

I don’t want to give my fear up.

Uh huh. I feel safer when I am living in the grips of panic about how unsafe I think I am. The paradox there is, frankly, a deeply infuriating mess of betrayal and pig snot.

I'm mad about it.

WTF even is that. I mean, what are we saying here? That the fear is better—the terrible and useless ruination of my morning (and often the night before) is better than NOT that? As though if I let the fear go, I would—what? Fall out of the sky? Asked and answered. Be unable to react to a situation that might occur like a plane crash that I have no control over or hope of surviving? But that also doesn’t make sense, because even terrified me can do things like make sure I still get cookies from the in-flight snack cart guy, or consider ways to show Red Pants how much I love him (I love you so much, Red Pants), or make a to do list. But somewhere inside me I clutch desperately to the same anxiety that makes me miserable. As though if I just let it go and chilled out, this would be worse.

Are you effing kidding me?

Also, staring into the abyss of mortality and the nature of life and death is really just exhausting, answers no questions, and does not inspire me to, once on the ground, make healthier life choices or commit more to my dreams or whatever. Kiiiiiinda one hell of a bait and switch, universe.

Other things I have noticed over the years: taking off is a billion million times worse than landing. Landing is fun! Landing….feels different. Even in turbulence, I’d rather be plummeting back to earth than moving away from it. Maybe there are physical reasons having to do with how ascending vs descending feel in my body, or maybe it’s more of a

Scientific imaging of my brain
choosing anger as a fear response.

“at least we’re going down on purpose” thing.

Maybe we’re close enough to the end of the horror show that I can get impatient about it, and annoyance creates an inhospitable environment for fear. Who knows.

Going somewhere is worse than coming home. I assume this is related to knowing, when I go somewhere, that I have another return flight on the horizon. Or maybe the unknown of whatever trip I am on is also low key stressful and while that stress seems negligible to my conscious mind, my lizard back-brain is perfectly happy to let that anxiety in to the general anxiety fiesta going on in-flight. In for a penny, in for a pound, that type of thing. (Thanks, lizard back-brain, you’re REALLY GOOD AT THIS.)

Sometimes, it’s totally fine. What is this? Why is this even allowed to happen? Sometimes, it’s just like “right, flight, whatever, fine” and other times I am reduced to only being able to breath and freak out. Which goes back to the whole “all this is internal, there is nothing objectively terrible about this, oh and by the way the science just works, so maybe calm down.” Which is true and also complete bs.

While rare, plane crashes happen. They’re terrible, and on the list of ways to die, it would be pretty bad. You’d have way too long to think about it. I sort of imagine that if I actually fell out of the sky, once I realized the mere sensation of falling wasn’t going to kill me, I’d be soooooo pissed. I would like to never find out if that is true. But irl crashes are quite rare, especially if you are making choices like going on a reputable airline that follows safety regulations, etc., not going toodling about with your posh friends on their prop-plane flying lessons.

How about I just meet you there?

(Dear potential posh friends, I do not want to go on your flying lesson. But, if you were to invite me to your villa in Costa Rica, I would absolutely suck it up, take Delta, and catch up with you in tropical paradise. Just…think about it.)

But then you look at things like the piper cubs from WWII and those just WORKED, Air Force One just WORKS—planes work. Flying works.

My unresolved fear, caring not at all.

Sometimes I can talk myself down from the fear—I can choose to let it go. That is a weird feeling akin to thinking you are not clenching your back muscles until a masseuse pushes on you and is like, you should take a deep breath and relax that…and then you do, and realize you can, and in fact you were the one clenching it the whole time. V strange. Similar to flying: both cool and unsettling.

The thing is, the trip is worth it. While I’m safely on the ground I can decide things like “I’m going to Family Camp” or “I’m going to my friend’s wedding” and get that flight. And once you’re on, it doesn’t matter how much you hate it or if you’re psychologically ready or not—you’re going up. And then you get to see other parts of the world and learn the landscape of your interior world and, sometimes, do Red Pants photo shoots.