Irrational Fear of Flying

I think that there should be a 50th post award that you get when you have posted in your blog for the 50th time. If there was one, I would be in the process of winning it RIGHT NOW!!!! Because this is my 50th post. How crazy is that? It feels like I just started yesterday. :-) It's nice how blogger keeps track of it for you.

I have decided to award myself this image as my 50th post award. YAY! I love unicorns!

Anyhow, so yesterday I finally bought my plane tickets to go home for a couple weeks this summer, and let me tell you, it was HARD to do! You see, over the past couple years, I have been harboring a fear of flying that with each day gets worse and worse and worse. It started off with a slight knot in stomach that would occur during take off. Then the knot started also existing during landing. And so on until now, when it exists every time I even think about flying. Last time I flew, the fear didn't start until I arrived at the airport.
This time, though, I was so overcome with terror that I actually had to open about 18 times, over a period of about a week, the page with the flight info. And then I had to BRIBE myself to push the button to purchase the flight. Seriously, if that delicious Pere Louis chocolate hadn't been sitting right in front of me, tempting me, telling me that it belonged to Guillaume if I didn't purchase the plane tickets - well, I don't think that the plane tickets would have gotten purchased.
I am guessing that the fact that THIS just happened didn't help. It's more than ever on my mind now just how life-threatening flying can be.
Really, for me, though, it's just the tip of a very large iceberg that has been growing for a very long time.
I hope I'm not going to have to medicate myself in order to force myself onto the airplane in July and then again in August.


It's funny, though, because yesterday I was doing some research on people that have a fear of flying, and most of them are seasoned travelers. Like myself. Seriously, I have been flying since I was in my mother's womb. I took my first commercial flight before I was even a year old. My father had his own private jet when I was growing up, and sometimes we would take it ridiculously short distances - like to go down to New Orleans (a 3 to 3 1/2 hour drive) for the weekend. Or to Lake Charles or Lafayette (both even closer than New Orleans) for a concert. I know airplanes. And while I have never particularly loved flying (I threw up EVERY SINGLE TIME without exception that I flew up until I was about 12 years old. Seriously. I am NOT exaggerating!), you would think it would be in my blood. A part of whom I am. But no. For me, it is one of the scariest and most stressful things that I can do.

I used to always look for babies every time I would get on to a commercial flight, thinking that if there were babies on the flight, there was NO WAY that it could crash. It doesn't really make sense, but somehow seeing babies on the flight would soothe me. The tip of my iceberg, this Rio -> Paris flight, has ruined even that for me. There was a baby on board. Now that baby is dead. That baby never had a life. I guess seeing babies will no longer soothe me. That sucks.

Anyhow, happier things. One of the things that both Guillaume and I miss the most about Montreal is brunch at Aux Vivres. Seriously, it was DELICIOUS with home fries and scrumptious tofu scramble and tempeh fakon. And then there were these chocolate coconut flax smoothies that were just to die for (I've really got to stop using that phrase - I've got an unhealthy obsession with and fear of death, and I don't think my choice of expression helps). So, Guillaume and I tried to recreate it the other day. Talk about heavenly!!!!


Not the best picture of Guillaume, to be sure, but doesn't that brunch look yummo!