Checked Baggage
Slice of Life - POV
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David has faced a train derailment, an emergency plane landing and a ?mid-air panic attack; so how does he still manage to climb on board?
I hate to admit it, but I’m not a great traveler. It’s not that I don’t like seeing fabulous new places; I just don’t like the process of getting there.
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I tend to over-pack (in case I might actually need seven changes of clothes for a three-day trip). Airports, which I never liked much to begin with, have now become
nightmarish with all the new security precautions. Plus, I’m not a big
fan of all that mingling with the general public.
Adding to the anxiety is my somewhat unlucky track record as a traveler. I’ve never met a person (other than myself) who has been in both a train derailment and an emergency aircraft landing. The derailment ocurred back when I was a college student. A bunch of us went on a hell-raising trip to New Orleans, and after 24 hours of non-stop drinking, we boarded a train back to school. Around 4am, just outside of Memphis, I was standing in the aisle chatting up a cute sophomore, when suddenly, the train jumped the tracks. Having been blessed with long, monkey-like arms, I was able to grab hold of the luggage racks, as the car swung back and forth until finally embedding itself in a patch of swampy ground. It was scary, but at the age of 18 it never occurred to me at the time that we were all potentially about to die. It felt more like a ride at Six Flags.
Ten years later came the emergency landing. I was aboard an airliner that flew into a violent storm. When I saw the flight attendants strapping themselves in, I was fairly certain that we were done for; so I turned to the utterly silent Asian woman next to me and launched into a lengthy monologue in an effort to assure her (and myself) that everything would be alright. I yammered on non-stop for about an hour — comforted all the while by her steady gaze and occasional, sympathetic nods. It was only after we safely touched down that I realized she spoke no English and hadn’t understood a word I’d said.
Despite these experiences, I continued to travel as needed. But every time I boarded an aircraft, I fought hard to suppress thoughts about an impending, horrible, fiery death like something out of a disaster movie. After years of torturing myself this way, I thought I had finally conquered my fear — until a new complication arose about five years ago.
Having boarded a flight, I settled into my seat and cracked open my People magazine. However, when the flight attendants closed the cabin door, my chest began to tighten out of nowhere. I couldn’t breathe. For some reason, the only thought in my head was: There cannot possibly be enough oxygen on the plane to last us for the next five hours! I struggled to reason with my panicking brain: I had been on a great many flights. Sure, they sometimes ran out of peanuts, but they had never run out of air.
I attempted to force air into my lungs — holding each breath and counting to three before slowly releasing it. My life began to flash before my eyes. Happily, it looked like a good life: I had loving parents and a good education. I blazed a trail for myself in a very tough profession and managed to make a good many people laugh. I’d volunteered for charities, made wonderful friends, eaten delicious food and had my share of sweaty, mattress-pounding sex. What else was there to life? If that was all the time I’d been allotted, I reasoned, at least I had spent it well. Nevertheless, I promised myself that if I got off the plane alive, I would never fly again, and — after about 45 excruciating minutes — my breathing began to return to normal.
It turned out to be a flimsy promise, because I did fly again. In fact, I’m flying home next week to celebrate my father’s 80th birthday, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’d be lying if I said I no longer get nervous (about weather, mechanical failures, passengers with wicked intentions), but the metaphor of leaving the ground is not lost on me. We all need to relinquish control at times and remember that fear (rational or irrational) is something every human being walks through from time to time. Victory lies in the knowledge that most of the situations we face in our journeys are quite survivable. And — let’s face it — in the end, to let fear make us withdraw from life is a fate much worse than death.
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