Fear of Flying Now

I've never been scared of flying.  My mom was a flight attendant, so we flew a lot since we could fly for free.  However, since having Sidekick (and still no will-- eek!), I have been a little afraid to fly. Not like needing anti-anxiety medicine or gripping-my-seat-until-my-knuckles-turn-white afraid, but just worried that something might happen.  The thought of my son being parentless makes me so sad.  I never speak of my fear the days leading up to flying or during my trip for fear I'll jinx it.

I was at a company meeting last week.  It was bad enough that I couldn't get on a flight earlier than 8:50 PM which landed at midnight, but throw in some storms, and it makes everything that much worse.  It was one of those flights when I was praying/"talking" to whomever "out there" would listen to me to make sure the plane landed safely.  The flight attendants were instructed to stay in their seats the entire time because we were literally flying through the storms the whole way to our destination.  When that happens, I know it's not pretty.  No one talked on the plane.  Not one single person got out of his/her seat.  How many times have I seen that happen even though the seatbelt sign was on?  It was as if everyone was doing the same thing I was... praying/talking to whomever.  I tried to read my book in between the bumps and drops in altitude, and I found myself rereading the same paragraphs over and over again.

And then I thought about my little boy.  The sweet, happy little guy who told me before I got on the plane that he loved me.  As strange as this sounds, I had never talked to him on the phone before.  Why?  Because he's either at school or with me.  The last time I traveled for work, my mom and I decided I wouldn't talk to him on the phone because we weren't sure if it would upset him.  Hearing his sweet little voice just made me smile. He sounded so little even though he has an incredible vocabulary.

I knew we would eventually make it on the ground safely, but the almost two hour flight was worse than the 2 1/2 hours I pushed to get Sidekick out!  I'll take that any day over being 35,000 feet above the ground in a metal tube that till this day, I still don't understand how it can fly. 

When the plane landed, I think everyone breathed a sigh of relief.  As I exited the plane, I thanked the pilot for safely getting us through that storm.  He seemed pretty exhausted and almost pissed that he had to take us through that. I think he was even a little relieved that we are all safely on the ground.

And when I got home at 12:45 AM, I walked into Sidekick's room and looked at his little body sprawled out on his back, arms above his head, having sweet dreams, and I was once again reminded why I'm not a fan of flying anymore.  I couldn't imagine not being around to watch this amazing little boy grown into a man.