“I see perfect little lives
Watch the shadows of the clouds
And the surface of the ocean out the window of a plane
I get nervous when I fly
I’m used to walking with my feet
Turbulence is like a sigh that I can’t help but overthink…”
-Jack Johnson

 I’ve never been one who has recurring dreams – I don’t think that I do. I know someone who has a recurring dream of all her teeth falling out (and according to dream analysis, that’s supposed to be a good sign, I guess). The only common theme to dreams that I have is the dream that I’m in a plane and it’s crashing.

And then I wake up.

I had the dream again the other night – for some reason, I was on a plane coming home from Hong Kong (I don’t know why the hell I was in Hong  Kong, but there I was boarding a plane… home from Hong Kong). The plane was aloft and then the next thing I knew, it was speeding towards the ground – not straight down, though. It was speeding as though it was landing really quickly, too quickly, and there was no land beneath it.

And then I woke up.

I can’t even begin to describe how much I hate dreams like these. I think it’s partly because I can’t help but recall such dreams when I am actually on a plane. Fortunately, that’s not too often. Yes, I’m aware that it’s safer to fly in a plane than drive in a car – but it’s the control freak in me that panics being on a plane because I am totally at someone else’s mercy, and I can cling to my armrest with all that I have, and it doesn’t do shit.

Yet, I’m completely aware that I could get totally t-boned out of nowhere while driving my car no matter how well I’m driving and have absolutely no control over that. So my logic is somewhat flawed when I say it’s a control thing.

I guess it’s also a not wanting to plummet to my death from 35,000 feet thing too.

I actually didn’t mind travelling before kids. Once my oldest was born, though, being on a plane reminded me that if something should happen to me while I was on that plane, she was going to be raised by my husband…alone… without me. And sorry, but that just scares the everloving shit out of me. My husband is a good dad in small doses. He’s easily overwhelmed by the kids, he is overwhelmed by all the things that need to be done for child maintenance (oh, bathing? They need to have baths? Really?). I step foot on a plane and all I can think of is my poor motherless filthy children running amok while my husband buries his head in the couch cushions wondering how many nights in a row he can serve Macaroni and Cheese for dinner and if the filling in PopTarts counts as a serving of fruit.

No wonder I break out into a cold sweat at the slightest hint of turbulence.

My last time on a plane was when I was pregnant for my youngest. I boarded the plane, and it wasn’t long before we hit turbulence and I got this deer in the headlights look on my face – it was so pale and freaked out, the flight attendant stopped by to see if I was okay. I wasn’t. She even sat down with me to talk to me to distract me. She offered me a drink, then a Valium. Of course, being all big and knocked up, I couldn’t have either. I meekly sipped some water while trying to take deep cleansing breaths.

Still panicked and the poor flight attendant had to get back to attending the flight, and she was still somewhat worried for me, so she found an off duty pilot on the plane (how does one just randomly find an off-duty pilot? I don’t know, but she did). He was awesome, came to sit next to me and explained to me the physics of flight.

And it was good.

I know it’s crazy. I know it’s irrational. But it’s me, one hundred percent. Anyone else have any goofy irrational fears they wish to share to make me feel like less of an asshat?