Fear of Flying

The good news: as noted a few days back, I'm leaving for a long weekend on Tybee Island tomorrow.

The down side: only way to get there is to fly. While I'm a seasoned veteran of plane rides, I'm still not a fan.

I suppose part of this fear can be chalked up to my front-row seat for the World Trade Center Disaster. I had just started a job at 100 Church Street on September 10, 2001; day two of orientation for that job found me at the corner of Barclay and Church Streets in my best suit and pearls at quarter to nine in the morning. Not fun, to say the very least. Anyone who remembers the sights and sounds (and smells) of that morning would have a little residual PTSD when it comes to flying, even six years after the fact.

But the truth of the matter is that I am a reluctant passenger when it comes to flying because airplanes are large, heavy metal objects held up in the sky with no visible means of support. When you think about them in those terms, it's pretty hard to trust them.