Grasping to Overcome Her Fear of Flying

First Thanksgiving passed me by, and then Christmas season. My next target date to get my boarding pass and proceed to the departure gate is in March, when my niece’s second child is due.

To travel home by plane is my goal. Although I think of buying a plane ticket, I keep putting it off.

Just as the tragedy of Sept. 11 loosened its grip, Nov. 12 happened. The loss of American Airlines Flight 587, accidental though it may be, gave new life to my fears.

I know the rhetoric about not being intimidated by fear, but the testimonies of those who are flying have not moved me from paralysis to the decision to sit in a plane seat.

I check the cheap flight Internet Web sites but I’m still not clicking on that “buy now” rectangle. I call 800 numbers to comparison-shop the rates but can’t commit to book that way either.

Limbo is an uncomfortable place. And so is zero tolerance for risk. I know that, but I am stuck.

Where is the key to unlock me from my self-made prison?

When a friend was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized, she distinctly remembers deciding not to have the breakdown. Not to, as she put it, “go through with it.” She emerged from the hospital, resumed work and finished raising two daughters.

She said she grabbed hold of an empty place, a place inside where she was neither sad nor mad--a pace in which she had a choice, a voice in the outcome of her life.

Her dilemma reminded me that we who are afraid to fly in reaction to the events of Sept. 11 also have a choice.

My friend was afraid to emerge from her personal fears. I asked her what pushed her out. She said she realized that even after a breakdown, she’d still have to work, still have to pay rent, still have to raise her girls, and still have all her life struggles. And there it was: struggles. She found out she could not escape suffering. Suffer the breakdown or suffer the exhausting role of a divorced mom with two kids but suffering was a constant.

Of course, some people will be blind to choices that may exist. For them there is reaction and that is all.

How maddening it is for me to be among this group. That I’m aware of my misfortune makes my fear no less strong. My friend’s story remains only a story for me and though I enjoy telling it, it serves as no alarm clock for my own awakening to possibilities other than fear. I’m already thinking of excuses to not fly in March. The worst part will be settling for a digital, e-mailed picture of my niece’s baby, instead of holding a real live human being.