Times, they are a'changin

As someone who has to fly fairly regularly, I'm not a fan.  I used to love it; When I flew to Europe in high school, it was clear that our pilot was new.  He decided to follow up a 7-hour flight by practicing some landing drills.  I'm sure it was more complicated and technical than that, but we're just gonna go with landing drills.  So we flew about 500 loops around the Frankfurt airport while swooping up and down, up and down, and I was giddy with excitement.  As I watched the other passengers turn green and reach for their barf bags, I pumped up the volume on my walkman, rolled my eyes and haughtily chewed my gum. 

Oh, kharma is a mo'fracker.

Not that I believe in kharma.  But if I did...

As fate would have it, I didn't become anxious about flying until I lived in a place where even the shortest of flights was 5-6 hours long.  Typical flights ranged from 9-11 hours.  Some demonic creature reached into my brain, flipped a switch, and my in-flight sanity went out the air-compressed window.

In my mind, this:

turned into this:

No joke.

From the time the aircraft taxis down the runway until we reach 35,000 feet, I resort to what I call my PleaseGods.  I pretend to act sophisticated, flip through a book or something, while on the inside I'm going, and I quote, "PleaseGod PleaseGod PleaseGod PleaseGod PleaseGod."  No need to get more specific than that.  God is fully capable of translating my prayer into something more like, "PleaseGod don't let us explode into flames and crash into the city/ocean/forest/mountainside.  Don't you dare let me go out like that."  Etc.

This went on for years, people.

I'm sure if I had more spiritual eyes, I would be able to see Jesus perched on the seat back in front of me saying his ItsOks.  ItsOk ItsOk ItsOk You'reOK You'reOK You'reOK.  But alas. 

And wouldn't you know, as quickly as this anxiety came on all those years before, it's starting to fade.  I'd like to ascribe this to some sort of new-found spiritual maturity, but honestly I have no idea what's going on, why it's now leaving me alone.

I'm just hoping I don't wake up tomorrow scared of breakfast cereal.  Or rabbits.

Because that would suck.