7:00am.
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012.
Terminal C.
Gate 53.
Port Columbus International.
Delta 3713
45 minute Layover in Memphis.
Onward to Omaha.
I encounter my deepest fears when my wife travels without me.
Loneliness.
Depression.
Loss of direction.
Loss of healing touch.
Not to mention reduced functioning w/r/t independent living skills. I assume I'm not the only one who has stayed up till 3am for not a single good reason and forgotten to do laundry and essentially survived on pizza eaten straight from the box while their spouse was out of town. Stereotypical, yes. Guilty as charged.
But mostly I am haunted by the crippling fear of losing my wife.
4 plane flights in 5 days means 4 chances for electrical wiring to fail. For an unforeseeable cataclysmic failure of various flight systems. For the landing gear to malfunction. For a horrifically damaging thunder storm to send Delta 3713 plummeting from the sky with loved ones screaming and grasping for hilariously useless oxygen masks.
Yes, yes. I know the chances of dying in a plane crash are insanely low. But my fear is not rational. It cannot be placated by appealing to logic or statistics. It will not respond to the soothing tones of NPR offering a soberly detached analysis detailing how the risk of death by air travel is some order of magnitude lower than the risk of death by car travel. It's far more complex. It's deeply embedded in my identity.
An increasing part of myself does not know how to be me without my wife. This fear is existential. I am sending an irreplaceably, profoundly necessary part of myself up into the air hundreds of thousands of feet in the same kind of metal tube that has produced catastrophic crashes that have left no passenger alive. And this is happening 4 times. In the next 5 days.
And I'm supposed to carry on? Even if the first two go as planned on Wednesday, I'm in for 4 days of psychological exhaustion as I vacillate between gratitude for her safety and dread because we have to do it all over again.
*I believe you will take care of my wife, Lord. And I believe you are with me no matter what happens. And that my identity is hidden in you. My existence. It is not in a plane nauseatingly far above the ground but rather safely with you. Forever. Lord, help me in my unbelief.*
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012.
Terminal C.
Gate 53.
Port Columbus International.
Delta 3713
45 minute Layover in Memphis.
Onward to Omaha.
I encounter my deepest fears when my wife travels without me.
Loneliness.
Depression.
Loss of direction.
Loss of healing touch.
Not to mention reduced functioning w/r/t independent living skills. I assume I'm not the only one who has stayed up till 3am for not a single good reason and forgotten to do laundry and essentially survived on pizza eaten straight from the box while their spouse was out of town. Stereotypical, yes. Guilty as charged.
But mostly I am haunted by the crippling fear of losing my wife.
4 plane flights in 5 days means 4 chances for electrical wiring to fail. For an unforeseeable cataclysmic failure of various flight systems. For the landing gear to malfunction. For a horrifically damaging thunder storm to send Delta 3713 plummeting from the sky with loved ones screaming and grasping for hilariously useless oxygen masks.
Yes, yes. I know the chances of dying in a plane crash are insanely low. But my fear is not rational. It cannot be placated by appealing to logic or statistics. It will not respond to the soothing tones of NPR offering a soberly detached analysis detailing how the risk of death by air travel is some order of magnitude lower than the risk of death by car travel. It's far more complex. It's deeply embedded in my identity.
An increasing part of myself does not know how to be me without my wife. This fear is existential. I am sending an irreplaceably, profoundly necessary part of myself up into the air hundreds of thousands of feet in the same kind of metal tube that has produced catastrophic crashes that have left no passenger alive. And this is happening 4 times. In the next 5 days.
And I'm supposed to carry on? Even if the first two go as planned on Wednesday, I'm in for 4 days of psychological exhaustion as I vacillate between gratitude for her safety and dread because we have to do it all over again.
*I believe you will take care of my wife, Lord. And I believe you are with me no matter what happens. And that my identity is hidden in you. My existence. It is not in a plane nauseatingly far above the ground but rather safely with you. Forever. Lord, help me in my unbelief.*