The Unbearable Lightness Of Being - Airborne!

When was the last time you did something for the first time? My travel diary displays this prompt for me right on the first page. 

The diary has been gifted to me by my sister. Needless to say I am already obsessed with it, to this extent that I have started writing on it using a pencil so that I can erase my mistakes and not leave any trace on the beautiful pages of the diary.

Yeah, I am weird that way. Deal with it. 

Anyway, I digress. Back to the prompt. 

Well, I do not really remember what I did for the first time and when. (It has got nothing to do with age). But I am going to do something after a very long time, something that I had decided never to do again.

I am going to board a flight tomorrow. Was it that anti-climactic!?!? I could FEEL your disappointment, people! 

I will explain.

It has been around seven years since I last boarded a flight. It was from Coimbatore to Hyderabad. The flight experienced some turbulence. While it was not my first tryst with turbulence, it was definitely the first time I got scared.

I blame the Panicking Passenger for this.

You see, the flight was experiencing some turbulence and I was still calm. But then the flight took a sudden dip. As if that itself wasn't terrifying, one passenger got up from his seat and started looking around in sheer panic and terror. One look at his reaction and my panic-o-meter started running very fast. 

Till date I don't know why I panicked that day. I am someone who likes the thrill of an airplane's take-off and landing. I am that freak who stares out of the window during the whole flight and takes delight in the sight of the ground below. I am that crazed psycho who laughs in glee whenever the flight tilts to an angle to change paths. None of these have ever scared me like that fateful day's turbulence. 

I guess some mysteries cannot be solved.

Writing this out has definitely calmed me. So what if I am checking for tomorrow's weather every few seconds??? So what if my Google has a lot of - Does cloudy weather lead to turbulence in flight? What is the safest mode of transport? FYI, I am getting contradictory answers, people. For the first question, Google dumped a lot of techno-laden trivia that flew right over my head, and none of the information gave a straight 'No' to the question. About the safest mode of travel, get this - oh the irony! - it is air travel. That is supposed to make me feel better. But do I? Let's not go there.

My handbag has my trusted Kindle, and my Kindle is loaded with zen-centric books that are all about mindfulness and staying calm. Not to forget, I have my travel diary to write down the thoughts that overwhelm me. 

All these should help me tomorrow, right? Okay, let's not go there. 

BTW, did I mention that the kid's way of dealing with air travel is to talk to me incessantly while I prefer to panic in silent solitude? Also, the husband chooses this exact moment to share jokes that only increase my panic. Let us tell the pilot to take a break and let us fly the plane. How is that funny, people!? 

But the icing on the cake is all the memes and news that I get about air-travel just days before my actual date of travel. I swear it is a conspiracy of the universe. 

Like this one below that just came up in a group. 

Yeah, tomorrow should be fun.