2003-11-17
Vegas, Baby
I'm free.
Finally.
I remember flying once in my childhood to Florida. I don't remember that my mother had a panic attack at our connection change in Pittsburgh and made my uncle come to the airport there to pick us up, but that's the story I've been told.
The verity of stories regarding our family history is sketchy, at best, so I'm not really sure if I should believe this one.
I didn't fly again until my junior year in college, when I went to live and study in France for a semester. I was twenty years of age and hadn't lived anywhere except under my parents' roof. With two suitcases and a red Jansport backpack, I embarked on the most exciting adventure of my life.
My parents left me at the airport, alone, and watched me board a puddle jumper which seated maybe twenty people. I sat with my face pressed against the window and marvelled at every foot of land below while butterflies swarmed every inch of the inside of my body.
I navigated JFK airport with my red Jansport stuffed with magazines, books, a Walkman and tapes, looking for the group of students from my university with whom I would spend the next six months attending classes, backpacking across the continent of Europe and eating unidentifiable French food.
We flew at night. I had the window seat but through the glass all I could see was black. At one point the plane dropped and the pilot instructed everyone, including the cabin staff, to return to their seats and buckle up. It was the first time I'd felt nervous on an airplane. I wasn't afraid, but the unknown made me just a tad jittery. The rest of the trip was smooth and uneventful. I was able to prove my flying naivete when the pilot's voice announced that we were approaching England and flying over the cliffs of Dover. I was convinced that the outline I could see from my window was the coast of land. It was, in fact, the wing of the plane. I realized this when the outline didn't move a millimeter for over thirty minutes.
We arrived in Paris and switched planes to get to Geneva, Switzerland. I remember that it was gray and rainy. I remember thinking, "Paris sucks." I was tired and scared.
From Geneva, we took a chartered bus to Grenoble. Each student was to live with a French family for the duration of the semester, but we had no information about the people in whose home we would reside prior to arriving in France. As far as I knew, I would be sent off with a serial killer in the name of "cultural exchange." This type of pre-travel disorganization drove my mother out of her mind and prompted several (loud) phone calls to the director of the study abroad program, prior to Mom planting herself on the sofa in the fetal position for the next 180 days.
So in the middle of a cold French night in January, I got into a teeny car with a stranger and went home.
Six months later, I boarded a plane back to the United States. The sun was so brilliant that day, I couldn't look out the window of the airplane.
Around 1993, I flew to Boston for work. That was the last flight I'd take for seven years.
Seana got married in September, 2000. I flew to New York to attend her wedding. I had a panic attack in the airport on the way back and couldn't stop crying until I boarded the plane. When my feet hit the earth, I swore to myself I would never fly again. If I wanted to go anywhere, it would be by car, or I wouldn't go at all.
At that moment, I was trapped. Trapped by fear and my own disbelief that such a fear could be overcome. Well, it COULD be overcome, but not by me. I wasn't strong enough for that, or many other things for that matter. I believed I'd never face my fear head on, so I'd never get to the destinations of my dreams or return to the places for which I held fond memories. I was stuck.
Last night, I got back from a four day trip to Las Vegas. I took no medication. I wasn't hypnotized. I just walked on the plane, fastened my seatbelt, let go of the paralyzing fear, and flew.
I'm free.
joeparadox at 4:01 p.m.