Fear of Flying
I remember reading Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, while flying on an airplane,when the book first came out years ago. I never dreamed then that I would one day write a blog titled Fear of Flying because I have a fear of flying, actually at this point, more a fear of vacationing.
20 years ago I loved to travel and flying was a great way to get so many places. Watching the ground so far below, the shapes of fields and forests, roads and rivers was mesmerizing. Then I saw the towers come down and I didn’t want to fly anymore. We had a flight booked to fly us to Puerto Rico the December after that fateful September day. I cried and cried and told my husband I just didn’t think I could get on a plane. We would have to cancel. Somehow in the two months that ensued, the rational part of my brain, the part that has believed in predestination for most of my adult life, took over and I flew to Puerto Rico. I lived to tell about it. But I didn’t enjoy it and I haven’t really enjoyed any flight since.
I take my i-Pod, fully charged and with 900 hours of music, a Nook with 50 + books loaded and fully charged, a minimum of two new magazines, and my computer in my carry on. As soon as I can plug in and turn on the electronics, the window shade goes down and I try to forget how far off the ground I am until the pilot says we are in final preparation for landing.
I am a nervous flyer before I ever leave home. Right now my suitcases have been packed since early this morning for our flight tomorrow. I will go through them at least two more times before Tom wrests them from my grasp and throws them in the car. His philosophy is if we forget something we probably aren’t going anywhere where we can’t purchase whatever we forgot. And since I haven’t flown to Vladavostok or Nambia recently he is probably correct.
There are other rules too. Tom will fly anywhere, anytime, the earlier the better because it gives you more time where you are going – like getting an extra day of vacation. I, on the other hand will not fly anywhere on a flight that leaves before 9 AM (preferably after 10:30). Those of you who have been following my blogs know that I am NOT a morning person. Flights at 6 AM would require me to stay up all night and just leave for the airport sometime around 3. Because not only do I worry about oversleeping, I also have this irrational need to be at the airport a full two hours before the plane boards. Therefore if the plane takes off at 6 it needs to start boarding by 5:30 so I would have to be at the airport by 3:30 at the latest ( I know – the ticket counters aren’t even open at 3:30) Since it can take 40 minutes to get to the airport (and longer in the snow) I couldn’t even leave at 3 and get there by my time table. I’ve cut it too close too many times – like a flight home from Italy when we were in a cab and could see the terminal but couldn’t get there. A very small (but not small enough) BMW going at a very high rate of speed had parked itself and the driver under a large produce truck blocking the middle lane. Traffic was not going anywhere.
Tom wanted to take the 6:40 flight to Seattle tomorrow. He is a very funny man. The flight I wanted to take at 11:52 was $300 more per ticket. So we compromised. We are now flying to Portland, Oregon and driving to Seattle, a two and a half hour drive. I look at it this way. Its a vacation. We don’t have to be anywhere specific at any given time. We will see his son whenever we get there and he has time to see us. In the meantime we get to drive through the rain and see the scenery all the way up the coast to Seattle. I love the two towns. We were going to rent a car anyway. So much better than a 6:40 flight in the morning.
I will check and double check all my ticketing paperwork, hotel reservation paperwork, ID’s, and maps again before I go to bed. I’m more likely to leave something out of my precious “trip” folder because I’ve taken it out too many times to inspect it and left something out when interrupted by Tom looking for his suitcase (mine has been out for a week). I’m my own worst enemy. Call it paranoia but you only need to arrive at an airport once and be told “we’ll see you tomorrow”, after your bags have been checked in. WHAT DO YOU MEAN “TOMORROW”? “Well, ma’m your flight doesn’t leave until 12:10 on the 22nd and today is the 21st. You stand there slack jawed with a blank uncomprehending look on your face. This isn’t really happening. Your cruise ship pulls out of the dock in Fort Lauderdale in less than 6 hours…. Yes, it really did happen thanks to a travel agent who hit the wrong key and I never noticed the error. Then there was the time when we were drifting off to sleep (back in the days before 9/11 when I still slept before flying) and thought to ask my husband “Honey, do you have your birth certificate (passports were optional if you had a birth certificate and driver’s license)? to which he replied “NO, you have it. You never gave it back after our last trip.” That sickening feeling of uh-oh – I think I threw it away in the ticket folder………That only involved a two week delay of a trip to Cozumel and Grand Cayman while we contacted friends in California to go to Sacramento for the birth certificate, and an entire rebooking of the trip. It was January. I wore my Hawaiian print dress to work instead of to the airport that day. Everyone felt sorry for me except my husband.
I’d love to hear about any of your flight misadventures. This is also your opportunity to nurse the nurse out of her fear of flying phobia. Any suggestions?
Think about it.