Last and first time I cry in an airplane was last year when my aunt dyed. I had been going back and forward from Bogota to Bucarmanga to see her when she was sick and the time finally came for me to go bury her. I was honestly sad. The woman that was right by my mother through my entire live, that ended up being my financial support and feeling like my second father, died in a very unexpected and painful way. Last time I saw her she was laying on a hospital bed all wired and unconscious….the remains of someone that used to be so alive. I was also going to this rough path with the guy I was dating (by rough path meaning being dumped) and I felt miserable. I had every right to cry. And I did. Not with in a show business kind of way, all out loud or anything like that, but I was crying and anyone could notice it. I loved it!!!! I had been wanting to cry on an airplane for quit long. It was liberating. I let all my fear posses my in the most helpless way to end up feeling abandoned and lonely. No more restrains. No more trying to hide the fear, the palms sweating, the desperation and the shame. The fly back home after the funeral felt completely different, almost surreal. I left my family being a new entity, one that I can longer recognize, and the whole trip I was trying to get rid of that image.
After that, lot of trips came. I met a flight attendant for Air Canada –friend of a friend- in ChaCha, and she advised me to take the strongest sleeping pill possible. I remembered the one I used when I was sick and the fact that it was also kind of anti-depressive, seduced me in a minute. It helped me though a 4 hour flight to Miami and a 3 hour flight to Chicago. It was unbelievable. Almost like nothing was going on (I was still dumped by that tim… I think it was the second time). I slept through must of the first flight but at the second one I was awake, laughing at the fact that I could recognize the things that scared me the most, but I was feeling like in a beautiful garden being carried away by butterflies and fairies. There was still the pre-flight fear (not sleeping the night before) to fight with. I visited my family for Christmas holydays and my pill (have of it, ‘cause they were just 1 hour flights) helped me through Bogota-Bucaramanga and Medellin-Bogota.
Then it came Rio. I was so excited about the whole trip that the fear of flying mixed up with too many other emotions that was hard to notice. I took the pill on sleeping purposes (6 hours flight to Sao Paulo and one and a half hour to Rio). When I came back, I didn’t take it. Didn’t need it. Just came back from a great vacation.
In this trip to Sao Paulo, I went to Panama first (don’t ask, company policies) and didn’t take it either until I got in the 7 hour flight Panama-Sao Paulo (sleeping purposes again). But I felt a little frighten. The night before I felt nothing. I was so emotional about starting my new life, and leaving behind people I didn’t want to leave (thank God those people kept me company through the night), that there was no room for fear. Finally, I took a plane to Buenos Aires today. Six hour flight round trip. And I didn’t take my pill. And I wasn’t afraid any more. I wasn’t. Believe it or not. I even enjoyed the bloody flight. When it moved strongly, when it switched unexpectedly, when it started, when it ended.
It got me thinking. Is it because I finally understood that planes are my closest way to home now? That would trade thousands of flying miles and hundreds of hours waiting on an airport or sitting on a plane to be ten minutes on a couch, rattling with my bracelets and hearing about how the day was? Maybe.
Maybe, is it a matter of frequency and I’ve been doing it so many times that now it feels familiar. O my God if this is the secret of a lifetime!!!!! Is this who the universe works? Frequency?????? That simple?
So you only have to spend enough amount of time with some for the weirdness to go away and feel fry to finally fall endlessly in love? You only have to hear the new language for a couple of months to finally stop being a mess in your own head? You only have to eat guanabana in many different plates for you start to really like it? Fuck the universe. I guess it has been a very long day and the caipiriña I just had with dinner is not letting me think straight…. Or is it?
I just hope there is no turning back, ‘cause today, I wasn’t afraid to flight.
