132,481.52 Miles

Since May of 2016, starting point always ORD (with the exception of going to UVF - St. Lucia, which was MDW), I have flown in to LAX, PHX, SFO, PDX, MCO, and LGA. In this time I have flown to LAX 26 times...

So, why hasn't my irrational fear of flying come to an end?

Like with my fear of storms, I took trained weather spotter classes, had a good amount of EMDR therapy and taught myself as much as I could about weather.

When Walter and I experienced the two earthquakes in CA, I learned so much about them, I had a wonderful book my Dr. Lucy Jones he got me and I took that fear by the horns and gathered all the information I could get.

I'm not sure why turbulence is any different. Storms - I have no control, earthquakes - No control... Flying - still, no control. But my stomach drops out of my ass the minute we hit a small bit of turbulence. 

I've been so used to flying to the West coast - I knew the turbulence "patterns" I guess you could say, I knew it would be a bit bumpy over the mountains and I always knew the right times of the day to fly (generally before 10am and after 8pm) when the atmosphere is chilled out, the sun hasn't had time to heat up the air and call for unstable flows.

Now, I'll be flying to the East Coast more and I don't know a thing about flying there. Their air is so different, I'm already sweating thinking about my flight in April. yuck.

None of this is rational, there has literally never been an accident due to turbulence, I know that the wings can handle more than I can comprehend, but seriously, I wish I could enjoy just a little bit of flying.

Maybe I can remind myself:

There are approx 100,000 every single day around the world.
Wings can flex 5 meters...about 17ft.
Seats in front of the wing are less likely to feel rough air.
Flying early morning and late night is when the air is less unstable.
Flying is by far the safest mode of travel - LITERALLY.

I have flown 132k miles.... ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTYTWO THOUSAND. Time to get over it Samantha.

The end. 💓