30,000 Terrifying Feet Up

Please stop coming at me with statistics. I don't care that you have committed tragic facts to your memory just in case someone like me comes roaming into your life one day. I do not want to hear it. I am a fully functional adult, and I understand that my incredible fear of flying is statistically irrational, ridiculous even. However, what I can not, for the life of me, understand is why everyone else seems so pissed about it.

This is not a problem that only 20-somethings face, I am very aware of that. I have been dealing with this insane and honestly life-altering fear since my very first memory of being forced into one of those inescapable tubed-shaped death traps. The thing is, in your twenties traveling is cool, traveling is the thing to do, and everyone seems to be purchasing their coach tickets by the dozen. Honeymooners and adventurers alike are jet-setting off to explore the jungles of Costa Rica and to learn the native ways of Thailand. I am, however, dreading my next trip home to Florida, which is not happening for four months. As you can see, it is not just physically settling into my fabric coffin that passes for a seat that fills me with angst, it is the time leading up to the unnatural take-off that also leaves me riddled with anxiety. Now, I'm not asking you to pity me. I am unworldly, I have missed out on once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that others continue to rave about, I have turned down jobs due to the travel clause on page 4 of the contract, but I am aware and dealing with it, and to be frank, I am just fine.

So now, if I am just fine, why is everyone else so up in arms about this? In no way, shape or form has my flying phobia ever stopped anyone from getting his or her passport stamped. I most certainly am not mad at you because the thought of spiders and snakes crawling and slithering around renders you paralyzed. I promise I will never lug a box of these creepy crawlers to your house, ring your doorbell and make you sit in said box for eleven hours, so please stop trying to convince me to buy that plane ticket to Israel. I am so flattered that you think I will make or break your trip, but I can say with an exorbitant amount of confidence that I will most certainly not. Leave me stateside and enjoy, really.

To continue my rant, I would like to make the following known. You can't fix me. I know this bothers you to no end, you love to fly and just can't wrap your mind around it! But I am beyond broken. Remember what happened to Humpty Dumpty (they couldn't put him back together again), that is me with a slightly more human shape. You volunteering to be my plane partner is the first misconception. I'm glad we are friends, but once I step foot onto that toothpaste tube made of metal and held together by nuts and bolts, and most recently discovered, super glue, you are a stranger to me. We have probably faced some challenges together before and seen each other through thick and thin, but when it comes to this you might as well be my neighbor that I have been living next to for three years and still have yet to see. Your presence will not save me when we plummet to our fiery death, so in the nicest way possible back off.

The next solution that the non-fearful flier always comes up with is taking anti-anxiety drugs. Not only do they tell me this with fervor like they are certain this is the solution, but they seem to think that I have neither thought of nor tried this little secret. I have tried different medications and various doses, but when you have as much adrenaline pumping through your veins as one of those mothers that can lift a van off her baby, the little white pills just end up being useless. I know what you're thinking and, no, drinking doesn't help. It actually exacerbates the nerves, and I'm speaking for the good of my fellow passengers when I say we don't want that. Also, if you are feeling the need to find my contact information and suggest a sleeping pill, you clearly have not been paying attention. If you think I can ease into slumber 30,000 feet about the ground, I no longer want you to even have a way to get ahold of me. And just to nip this in the bud, for all you fans of alternative homeopathic remedies... hypnosis, well, been there, done that.

It is now time for my formal apology that is so obviously dripping with sarcasm. I am so so sorry that my fear of falling out of the sky is somehow inconveniencing you. When you ask me why I have never been backpacking around Europe, please hold in that chuckle and refrain from sending your eyes on a trip around your sockets when I tell you that I am scared to fly. Remember I will not judge you if you choose to rely on a nightlight, for I understand that you think the dark is terrifying. For the very few people that I actually might be affecting (mom, dad, sister, about six very close friends), I actually do apologize. But, I can assure you that I am not choosing to purposely make my life, or yours, less fun. If I could trade this in for a fear of snakes, which, I don't think, has ever stopped someone from experiencing another culture or kept someone from visiting their family, I would do so in a heartbeat.

So, I know you are all wondering about that little stat. How crazy am I exactly to go against these facts? Lets see here, according to USA TODAY, "...it calculated the odds of dying in a motor vehicle accident to be 1 in 98 for a lifetime. For air and space transport (including air taxis and private flights), the odds were 1 in 7,178 for a lifetime." By these odds, I should be scared you-know-what-less to strap into a car, but isn't the world funny, I'm just not. I guess I never have been much of a math whiz.

I think I speak for all horrified fliers everywhere when I say that even though most of us are adults, we love getting grounded.