Post your SOLC piece to schoology by 11:59 p.m. tonight!
As novel, and perhaps naive, as a fear of sharks lurking in open water might have seemed to me, a midwesterner, I know frequent fliers would roll their eyes and only shrug at the discomfort I have felt in recent years at the thought of flying. I can trace a version of this fear back to being rattled really good after 9/11 and even convincing my mom that nothing as the airport snack bar would suffice like a breakfast sandwich from McDonald's, which was a mile down the road from the airport, when we were already waiting for the South Shore train at the airport on our way for an eighteenth birthday trip in April to Chicago and Marshall-Fields; I - admittedly irrationally - felt like all those people who were in the snack bar at the airport, daring to fly within six months of September, were going to die. I remember that impenetrable feeling of danger like it was yesterday, but I have not verbalized it before now.
I do not remember the first time I flew after 9/11, but, life happened, and I swallowed the fear that had stopped me in my tracks at the airport senior year, and apparently got over it. I flew for years without any problem: overseas for eight-plus hours with my mom, brother, aunt, and uncle for our 2005 trip to Poland; flew alone to Palm Springs to meet my aunts and uncles for spring break. On our honeymoon, we flew in a little plane into an open valley surrounded by the Grand Tetons.
I now believe the resurgence of this fear to fly came along as a manifestation of a side-effect of a medication I took for several years, which was said to possibly cause "anxiety"; low and behold, it took me years to recognize the anxiety I felt was induced by the medicine, not reality. During that time, though, I endured multiple nervous trips in the air. For example, I didn't mind the night-flight to San Antonio for NCTE in 2008, but I uttered an unexplainable "Oh, no!" at the sight of the decent-sized, turboprop (aka: propeller-powered) plane outside the window of the terminal, waiting to take us the final leg of the trip home from NCTE via Cleveland; oh, of course, I later, thought, "Der-her, propellers were the way it was when flight began...", but, in the moment at the airport, I may as well have seen Orville and Wilbur out there with their Kittyhawk-model waiting for me to come aboard.
Then, when hoping to avoid flying for awhile - cough, cough - as long as possible, I was asked in spring 2009 to head to Washington, D.C. to represent the Indiana Writing Project at the National Writing Project's Spring Meeting, which is centered around sit-down meetings with congressional representatives and their staffers on behalf of this organization. Knowing it was a huge honor to be asked to represent IWP, I accepted the invitation and ended up talking my traveling partner's ear off to the airport and on the plane; on the trip home from D.C., I even struck up a conversation with a stranger during take-off just to distract myself. That November on the trip to Orlando for NCTE, I ate an apple, banana, and grapefruit to distract me while waiting for everyone else to board and we got airborne; I read the duration of the trip while clutching my book and cupping my other hand against my forehead and free side of the book as though I was blocking a blinding sun from my eyes.
Now, I'll be heading to NWP's Spring Meeting in D.C. again in a few weeks, and believe I have 90% conquered this dread. When I think about the trip, I genuinely feel excitement and anticipate the adventure - airport and airplane included; and, I haven't experienced the frequent dreams set on planes that I had during the weeks leading up to the last time I flew. Thus far in the SOLC, I feel I have been quite frank and honest; not only have I confessed how some foods (ie: Thin Mints) can seemingly "talk to me" and summon me to come eat, but I've shared this other elephant-in-my-psyche. Even just confessing this shadow in my thoughts feels uplifting and positive. Ultimately, I know that I am bigger than the fears planted in my brain; or, more eloquently put in a Japanese proverb, "Fear is only as deep as the mind allows." I look forward to this trip and the opportunity to again be able to get lost in the productive chaos of the airport's hustle and bustle; wait indifferently, mind genuinely distracted until I am called up for boarding; and pass the pre-flight instructions and hours of airtime reading, journaling, dozing, and feeling only enjoyment during the journey and looking forward to arrival at the destination.