RanDoM ThOugHts on SiLLy ThiNgs LiKe dYiNg

The anticipation of death is worse than dying itself. I had to go to San Francisco on the weekend. I considered (seriously) going on a Greyhound bus...but it would have taken me days to get to the Golden State...and I didn't have the luxury of time. Driving a car is out of the question. I can barely get to work, a total of 6 miles from my apartment to my job, without hitting somebody else's car and creating a massive pile-up on the highway...so driving a couple thousand miles is equivalent to me being an astronaut and walking on the moon: highly unlikely. I hate flying. I absolutely hate it. If you want me to suffer (attn: all my enemies, if I do have 'em haha), give me an all-expense paid trip to somewhere remote like the southernmost village in Africa, somewhere that involves a lot of hours of sky miles. Now, that is my idea of torture. Let me tell you what happens to me when I fly. When I get to the airport, I get an allergic reaction. I start itching and my hands get all clammy. I start sweating like a maniac and my heart beats like a wired jock on steroids. Needless to say, I don't look too good when I fly. Not that I look like a superstar to begin with, but when I fly I am not just my usual fat, ugly self...I am extraordinarily hideous. As I get to check-in, I start feeling dizzy. There are tiny yellow specks within my peripheral vision. Add to that the fact that I am desperately trying to decide if my exposed feet stink. As I board the plane, I can hardly walk. It's my version of the death march. Or walking the plank, awaiting for the guillotine. The real fun, though, begins as the plane takes off. But that particular flight was a special one. My husband's idea of getting back at me for making his life hell was to book me the cheapest flight possible. That can only mean one thing: stopovers! ArgH! AaahhhHhh! The dreaded word has been unveiled. Stop-overs. Death by connecting flights. And so, as I was walking the plank, I noticed something strange. I knew what it was as soon as I was inside. The plane was small. Very, very small. Panic could NOT even describe what I felt in that instant. If there is something I hate worse than flying, it is flying in a small plane. My bathroom is bigger than that stupid plane! Well...not really...but you get my drift. Now, I have a confession to make. At the risk of being ex-communicated (do they still do that nowadays?), I barely get by praying a mystery of the Holy Rosary a day, if at all. But when I fly, I whip out my glow-in-the-dark rosary beads and start praying for dear life. I have prayed more in the last three days than I have in a month. And I've had more conversations with my favorite saints (St. Jude, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Therese, St. Dymphna, Padre Pio & Mother Teresa) and my favorite angels (St. Michael, St. Gabriel and my guardian angel) in the past three days than I have in a long time. I've attempted to point a decent reference of my fear of flying and this is the best I could come up with: everyone has a kryptonite. Everybody needs one. Yikes! That's so dorky...but Clark Kent's hot (aka Tom Welling), so whatever. As I've said, everyone has a kryptonite. And mine is flying. When I go through bouts of depression, I often declare quite glibly that I want to die. That I am not afraid of death and in fact, it would be a welcome release. But inside that small plane, clutching my rosary, 27 thousand feet in the air, I realized there was nothing I wanted more than to live...for my feet to touch ground...to see my family again. And tell my husband I loved him like crazy. Hahaha. I am back home now. I've already told my hubby how I adored him and I've already been nice to him for a couple of hours. I am back to being bitchy. Hehehe. I think I needed that awful plane ride to get my brain working so I could put things in perspective. I think we all need something to fear. We all need a point in our lives where the possibility of death is very real because then we realize how much life really means to us. I was at my most vulnerable inside that plane, scared shitless because it was something I had no control over, a sitting duck awaiting my fate. And it was in that moment of being scared to death, of feeling so stripped and raw and weak that I reached for my rosary and prayed like crazy. Because when a situation is out of your hands, you learn to reach for God. When it comes down to the wire, all you have is your belief that He exists.