traveling can do funny things

It's been a long time since I've been on a plane by myself. It would be vaguely heroic to say that it's because I've been busy being a dedicated wife and mother but that is simply not true.  I've just been a total chicken about it really. In the past I've even gone as far as to purchase airline tickets only to back out a couple days before the flight. While I'm certain that didn't go over well with my traveling companion I rationalized that it would be her burning corpse that would plummet to the earth and not mine. At which point I could triumphantly say "I knew it. I just knew this would happen." Only my premonitions were more or less...not.

I haven't always been such a morbid reluctant traveler. It's even safe to say that being a traveler was a way I defined myself but then lifes events tend to add up (emergency landings, bus crashes, my son, my parents equating my travel to a death in the family -you know, the normal stuff) and neuroses take over. Case in point, me. Every comment or thought became a premonition. Morbid thoughts of flaming planes, catastrophic natural disasters, train derailments, etc. invaded my mind. Most disturbing was that in addition to seeing every horrific detail, I'd feel it. Oh yes, totally and completely rational thought, I know. Which is why nearly a year ago, with a quivering hand, I wrote the goal of flying alone.

Today I'm proud to say that I actually did it, a week ago today I boarded a flight to New York. Sure cocktails and anti-anxiety medicine was a key part of getting me on the plane, both ways, but I did it. I did it because I needed this trip more than anything. So evey time my mind would go to that dark morbid place an unrecognizable voice would reach up and yell "SHUT UP!"

Thank you angry little voice.