This is clearly not a theater blog! I have not been prolific in theatrical prose or thought in any real capacity since I finished my classes… (save for the occasional caricatures I write for my friends while talking online)…………which goes to show that it is a hobby not unconnected to a sense of duty. How disappointing.
Serene’s wedding is soon. And to get there, I have to take a plane, which is a large, really heavy metal object that they tell me is capable of flight. In the air. With nothing under it. This is the official public debut of my FEAR OF FLYING. There. It’s out now.
I don’t experience anything like what people with real aviophobia do… since apparently you have to actually not fly due to your phobia to qualify for that diagnosis. And diagnosis is the only thing that leads to professional attention and then pills, pills, pills.
So maybe it’s better this way. But I do have to pray profusely before taking off, completely occupy myself with people-watching and seatbelt adjustment until takeoff, clamp my eyes shut and grip my armrests for the first 5 minutes of flight (85% of accidents) while attempting to not look visibly anxious………………… and then for the rest of the flight: staying busy with Vogue magazines, hokey Christian books, my iPod (above 20,000 feet), ordering complex juice cocktails, staring at the wing flaps moving around, staring at emergency exit rows, the nuts and bolts of the plane body, and envisioning falling to earth in the air…. and trying to combat all this by thinking about something that I know for CERTAIN God wants me to do at my destination, therefore securing my safe arrival. (?) And people wonder how I manage to be skinny while gorging myself. Intense and constant stress and anxiety in many parts of my life, anyone?
Sigh. I tell myself that they have therapy for people like me (and worse), which should prove this entire thing irrational which then means……… I should be above it? Hah. I think ever since I was 5 or 6, I’ve been slightly afraid of flying… perhaps because I’m a control freak. I always read those safety booklets and stared at the emergency exit cartoons until my eyes fell out. Other things could have also contributed to it… I had to fly alone at age 7 from China to Canada to join my parents, 9/11 probably, and being caught in a huge scary electrical storm while stuck in the window seat next to a very, very obese and smelly man (who does improv comedy and was very interesting to sit next to). Arghhh………
Perhaps blogging about it will help some.
But until I see you, please pray for my my safe trip!