I survived

I did it.

I got on an airplane. Not once, not twice, but four separate times. I did it all alone.

And I didn’t even die. Not one time.

My fear of flying is deeply embedded. My first flight was to Washington, D.C. the summer before 7th grade. My Dad flies all the time and never shows an ounce of fear because, well, he’s not afraid. My Mom? White knuckles, all the way. I couldn’t reconcile how Dad was so nonchalant while Mom was practically hyperventilating with her eyes squeezed shut for a solid two and a half hours.

The flight wasn’t actually that bad. The return trip? A little rougher. We flew over a thunderstorm, and the pilot kept climbing to avoid severe turbulence. I vividly remember coming down with a nauseating headache over a breakfast of sliced oranges sprinkled with toasted coconut. (I’m getting sick thinking about it now!) Then we sunk down through the clouds and were practically skimming the Missouri River into Eppley Field.

My Dad? Totally cool. Probably embarrassed by the ridiculousness of his girls.

Next up was a flight to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. (Yeah, I was cool like that.) We flew a prop plane to Minneapolis from Sioux City. The first (and hopefully, last) time in one of those. No flight attendant, unless you count the person in yellow sweatpants who hopped on the plane to shuffle our luggage around to distribute weight more evenly. The flight wasn’t as horrible as I suspected, but I couldn’t help but fixate on the vision of Jessica Lange smashing into that mountain in “Sweet Dreams” the entire time.

We made it to Minneapolis and connected in Memphis. Nothing spectacular. I remember the Memphis airport being all decked out in pink and blue neon, celebrating Elvis as only an airport can celebrate Elvis.

Memphis to Pensacola was a totally different story. By now, it was nighttime. We were on one of those regional jets that are just a step above prop planes. And we ran into some nasty weather.

Needless to say, I was a wreck.

We hit severe turbulence, the kind that jars you around as if you were on a sick and twisted roller coaster ride. Lightning all around, just like that one episode of “The Twilight Zone” where William Shatner’s character keeps seeing Sasquatch hopping on the wing. Thank God for my kind friend, Kelly, who kept reassuring me that turbulence was just like cars going over tire tracks.

Sure, cars. Cars 30,000 feet in the air with nothing underneath but a steep drop and solid ground to break your fall.

The analogy was lost on me, and I started to freak out as the plane jerked more violently. The flight attendant was strapped in towards the front of the plane, facing us. I needed Dramamine, horse tranquilizers, ANYTHING, and Kelly motioned for his assistance. But he was busy with his death grip on his seat. He fervently nodded, “NO!”, refusing to unbuckle. Kelly took matters into her own hands and started to walk towards the flight attendant, intent on getting some water for me to wash down some hallucinogens. The plane jerked, Kelly tripped and fell down the aisle, and I think that’s when I started screaming, “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Yes, I really am that fun.

The turbulence kept at it, but we finally broke through the clouds. I saw happy twinkling lights below where happy families were happily on the ground.

Then blackness.

We were over the Gulf of Mexico, looping around for landing. But all I could think was that the plane was not only going to crash in the ocean, I was also going to be devoured by sharks on top of it.

I was not happy.

Finally, we landed without incident. I felt rather sheepish for being so dramatic. Until we deplaned onto the tarmac. The staid business commuters who shared that flight with me actually knelt on the ground and kissed it.

See? I wasn’t kidding. It was pretty bad.

I begged to take a train home, drive, even WALK. I DID NOT, by any means, want to get on another plane, EVER. Of course, I had to fly back from Huntsville to Memphis to Minneapolis to Sioux City. And I’m typing this now, so you know I actually made it. But my fear of flying was all the more cemented, and it wasn’t budging for anything.

I mentioned my Dad travels a lot for work, and my family and I always had the opportunity to tag along. Montreal was a big trip. Didn’t go. He flies to Arizona and California and Florida quite frequently, in the winter, too, but guess what? Never went. Colorado? Only by car. New York City? Are you kidding me?

I missed out on many adventures, but I told my adventurous self that I didn’t need to go anywhere that badly. I denied my wanderlust and convinced myself that an adventure consisted of three-hour interstate drives.

I flew to Orlando once in January. We left Omaha covered in snow, the temperature hovering below zero. And while Orlando wasn’t much warmer that time, it was novel to be out of parkas. I allowed myself to enjoy that one.

And then our dear friends were to be married in the bride’s hometown of Juarez, Mexico. We bought the tickets, we were ready to go. It was going to be an absolute blast.

But a full week of night terrors and absolutely horrendous anxiety kept me on the ground. Joel went without me. I couldn’t even go near the airport. He was gone for a week, updating me daily with all of his adventures. And there I was, the one in the relationship who could actually speak Spanish, sitting in Des Moines at my cubicle, missing the wedding of a lifetime all because I was a wimpity-wimp afwaid to be on a pwane.

I felt so embarrassed. And 13 years later, I still feel it.

Joel insisted I fly on our honeymoon. It was only to Miami to hop on our cruise. It took tranquilizers this time, something that I was really ashamed to admit, but something that did help. What does it say on the prescription? Don’t mix with alcohol? I was so terrified that I ignored instructions and drank on the plane, thinking that would magnify the effect. And it certainly did. I was everyone’s best friend on that flight and the one returning home. At least in my own fuzzy mind.

As young newlyweds, Joel and I decided that we wanted to move across the country. I encouraged a compromise to Dallas, and he agreed. Our Juarez-married friends had relocated there, and I sort of felt like I would be making it up to them somehow by flying to stay with them there.

And that was the very last time I flew.

Before 9-11. Before all of the new rules. Before three kids and a mortgage and car payments. In other words, before I actually became a grown-up.

Last June, opportunity arose for me to fly to Salt Lake City for the Digital Scrapbooking Experience, a convention put on by Creating Keepsakes. Nancie, the owner of ScrapArtist, threw it out there that I might want to go. I justified not going one hundred ways to Sunday, but by August (and with a lot of prodding from Joel) I bit the bullet and, with much reservation, made my reservation.

I watched takeoffs and landings on YouTube over and over again. I learned as much as I could about how planes work, including the fact that not a single plane has ever dropped out of the sky because of turbulence. I steeled my nerves, convincing myself that if someone as formerly mousy as me could kickbox, then I could probably fly.

I was flying solo, so no drugs. No alcohol. And certainly no mixing of the two. I didn’t want to wind up hungover in some Dumpster at the airport.

As my departure day approached, I felt butterflies more and more. But I kept telling myself I could do it. I promised myself that if I could get over this then we could take more interesting family vacations. I could stop talking about all of the places I want to go and actually go to them. I could check one big huge thing off my list.

Joel dropped me off at the Des Moines airport very early Wednesday morning, before the kids were even thinking about being awake. I felt sort of like a big girl just then, dependent on myself. I went through what has become quite agonizing security since my last flight 12 years ago. What you have to endure for a travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer is pretty amazing.

I made my way to the gate at the end of the terminal and waited. And used the bathroom. And waited. And used the bathroom. And waited. And used the bathroom. My biggest fear at that point? Losing control of my bladder/bowels. Seriously. I started to perspire in weird places, like the tops of my feet and behind my knees. I had little fleeting moments of doubt that I would actually be able to walk and board. I was terrified to actually be strapped into the plane with no choice but to endure whatever the flight was going to entail.

But I did it. I got on that plane. I buckled my seatbelt. I looked around at my traveling companions and quietly promised them I wouldn’t puke or scream or otherwise torture them with my insecurities.

The plane sped up. It left the ground. My eyes were closed, and I just kept breathing like I was at Farrell’s. I told myself I kick things for exercise and this was absolutely no big deal. The plane shuddered a little bit on ascent, but nothing major. And before you know it, I looked out and got a bird’s-eye-view of Valley Stadium, Jordan Creek Town Center and other familiar landmarks. A few minutes later and we were flying over the Missouri River. Not long after that, Kansas City. Then Kansas.

Before you know it, I saw the Red River and we crossed into Texas. I could make out our old neighborhood, using Grapevine Mills Mall as a reference point. And I actually started to tear up a little bit as we landed in Dallas. It was at that moment I realized how much I’d allowed irrational fear to guide so many of my choices over the years. I felt awfully regretful. I felt like apologizing to anyone and everyone to whom I’d ever exhibited my ridiculousness. But then I felt a little more strident, a little more fearless, a little more confident in myself.

Happy to land, but happier still that I’d made it so far.

The leg from DFW to Salt Lake was on a larger plane, more people whom I realized God probably didn’t want to slam into the ground today. We flew over the clouds and as the sky cleared I saw snow-capped mountains. The Wasatch Mountains. I have a big thing for mountains, and seeing them from high above is just something you don’t do every day unless you’re a pilot. Then I spied a huge copper mine, Provo, and then the Great Salt Lake.

I landed, I was alive, and I went to sleep that night dreaming about all the places that had just opened up to me in the world.

I flew back home the same way, SLC to DFW, DFW to DSM. And I didn’t lose control of myself or any of my internal organs. Not once.

The best way to conquer your fears is to face them head-on.

Now for that pilot’s license…