The worst of my anxiety comes out when I leave home. Or when I know I have to leave home. Booking flights on my phone is an abstract conceptual act, even packing a suitcase is theoretical, but actually leaving, and going to bed knowing I am waking up at an ungodly hour to catch a flight is hell. If you spoke to me the night before any trip, I’d say, I would do almost anything for this to be cancelled. I often hope for traffic jams, sleeping through alarms or anything else that would allow me a free pass to stay home instead. Once in my old life, I woke up on the morning of an exciting work trip that I had literally volunteered myself for, and decided I couldn't possibly go. I emailed the company saying I’d lost my passport and went into the office declaring the same thing. I ignored the response of the quite rightly annoyed PR whose job I had dismissed because I just had a bad feeling about this trip. And the thing is, I have a bad feeling about every trip, every flight. Holly asked, have you ever got off a flight and decided it’s not dangerous and I said, no, actually.
On a practical note, the only thing that cured me of my fear of flying was flying a lot. Though appreciate flights are expensive these days. Gone are the £20 Milan for lunch return trips of the early 2000’s.
On a less practical note, I am gathering you have read Fear of Flying? If not, worth half a day of your time. It felt like a lot of what you’re writing about sits as a companion piece to Jong’s book.
Oh and also; I love your writing! I hope you know how talented you are. Have a great day!
The whole piece was gorgeous and funny but “I hope for things that are sometimes painful to hope for” got to me. Hope is so heavy to carry sometimes, and yet we try, and isn’t that meaningful in itself. Thank you for this x
On a practical note, the only thing that cured me of my fear of flying was flying a lot. Though appreciate flights are expensive these days. Gone are the £20 Milan for lunch return trips of the early 2000’s.
On a less practical note, I am gathering you have read Fear of Flying? If not, worth half a day of your time. It felt like a lot of what you’re writing about sits as a companion piece to Jong’s book.
Oh and also; I love your writing! I hope you know how talented you are. Have a great day!
The whole piece was gorgeous and funny but “I hope for things that are sometimes painful to hope for” got to me. Hope is so heavy to carry sometimes, and yet we try, and isn’t that meaningful in itself. Thank you for this x