They Don't Always Mean Something New

Sometimes the big realization is that nothing can, or will or has to change.

-  BETH LEVINE

Recently, a friend asked me if I'd ever been to Israel. Before I could even open my mouth, she added slyly, "Oh, that's right. You can't get on a plane." I think she was trying to be funny. There was a time when I would have died a thousand deaths: She knows my dirty secret; she's making fun of me; she thinks I'm pathetic; I am, in fact, pathetic. This time, however, I stopped the tape in my head and played a new one. It said, Everyone has a screw loose somewhere, and having a thing about planes happens to be mine.

You have no idea how hard I've worked to get here.

I've been a fearful flier since grade school. Once I grew up, I could white-knuckle a flight, even though the months leading up to it were full of panic attacks, sleepless nights, canceling, and rebooking.

(And, once we landed, constant worry about the flight back.) Along with fear came self-loathing: I was defective, weak, chickenshit. Why could everyone else just do this? My last flight was in 1986, a quick and uneventful trip on the shuttle from New York to Boston. I haven't flown since.