The art of control

Does being a nervous flyer mean you're a control freak?

I’ve been terrified of flying for as long as I can remember.

Palms sweaty, Mum’s spaghetti (down your front) kind of intense fear. 

It’s not rational considering I drive a manual through the disorganised streets of London like I’m in Super Mario Kart. And in my defence there were a few glory years where the jet thrust of takeoff was as exhilarating as lumping in 3 more heaped spoonfuls of Milo when your Mum turned to her back to grab the milk. 

But then life got a bit serious. 

The whole mortality awareness came at you like your siblings foot to the face in a backseat car fight.  For me it was the biggest hurdle of young adolescence - continuing on with life knowing that you can like, fucking die. 

My parents suggested I play ‘Enya’ on my walkman to help my sleep. To this day when there’s any form of silence I can hear ‘sail away sail away sail away’ and I am anything but calm. 

Then I tried hypnotherapy! 

An hour in a dark room (which I imagine is how the womb feels) with soft music, a lava lamp and a goosebump inducing doctor whispering for me to relax my little finger, little toe and so on. 

It’s taken me years to figure this out but one thing I do know is that my feelings of impending brain combustion is at its peak when I am not in control. Flying being anxiety’s Everest. I strive to be the person on the plane who inserts their EarPods and is in a REM sleep by the time the safety announcement commences. 

I am not! 

I listen intently, quite often having to stop myself from taking notes - 

‘What if I fuck up the life vest, the strap sounds complicated’. 

‘Wait, do I pull violently or gently on the oxygen mask’. 

I walk the aisles deciding whether the people on board look like they’d be good in a crisis and the flight attendants, do they look like their heart is in their job or they’re big on Tiktok?

When the Captain talks I decide my comfort level on their tone of voice and if they’re overly informative about weather, cross winds and flight time. From that alone I’ll make my final assessment of their reliability, professionalism, my morbid thoughts of impending death. 

Would I be more comfortable in the cockpit sitting with the Captain ensuring he didn’t do vodka shots with some Swedish exchange students before he boarded, absolutely! Do I walk off the plane feeling dominant and euphoric like I personally just landed us safely, yes I do! 

I wrote this down the other day and circled with a question mark what my problem was! 

So I wrote a list of all the things I am scared of or feel uncomfortable with. 

Flying, being a passenger, being at the back of a long queue, group projects, waiting for return phone calls, being stuck behind a scrum of slow walkers with no overtaking lane, not being invited to things that I didn’t want to go to anyway. 

And I realised a common dominator -

They are all things out of my control! 

Now this is not curing it is simply isolating the problem. It’s like the people who curse at their dogs who take too long to finish their poo. I understand the problem but I simply can’t change it. 

So I decided to conduct my own little interview with those around me - and what did I discover?

Most of those who shared the same feelings about flying were women! A lot said this was heightened post babies / turning 30! And all said the same thing - it does not stop them from continuing to do things that make them uncomfortable. 

So how do we infiltrate these thoughts of grand delusion that we as humans can somehow control their entire lives? 

Where does that leave fate or destiny? The path less followed, the element of surprise, the tiny moments in life that are completely accidental and unplanned? 

Had it not been for lack of control I wouldn’t have met my husband, we wouldn’t have moved our entire lives across the world, I wouldn’t have trusted the people around me to bring my babies into the world and I wouldn’t haven’t made some of the deepest most beautiful relationships I’ve ever had in my life. 

So there’s a place for relinquishing control and there’s a place for demanding it. And perhaps finding the line between the two is one of the constant battles/beauties of life because regardless of the control you desire or repel, life has a funny way of happening anyway and if you need reminding of how out of control you are just sit next to your 8 year old son on a flight who says mid turbulence ‘when you pass away can I have your phone?.