Let’s Fly Away

Isn’t it funny, how you can be so tightly wound and stressed-out that doing something you fear the most sounds like the best idea ever. That was me, a few weeks ago – stressed to the max, when a friend asked if I was interested in a girls weekend in Sydney. “I’M IN!” I texted back. Then I thought, “Fuck. I have to get on a plane. By myself.” For a while I considered all kinds of reasons to get out of it. But the truth was, I was so desperate for a break, to get away from life, and I joked that, “I may not ever come back!” Partly because I really thought I wanted to run away forever, partly because I thought “I’m flying, that’s it, I’m going to die!”

I will admit, I needed anti-anxiety pills to help me get through both flights, but I did it. On my own, with only minor freak out at the end where we were landing and everything underneath us was black – water – until the last minute when THANK GOD THERE WAS LAND! And my mind wondered, “Who the fuck builds runways out into the ocean anyways?”

A friend of mine said, “You sure do fly a lot for someone who is terrified of flying.” Well, I have two answers to that. Firstly, I don’t think flying three times (six including the return trip) in 18 months is “a lot” and secondly, I don’t want my irrational fear to keep me from doing things, seeing places and visiting people I love. As a bonus to having a girls weekend, I also got to meet my new baby nephew and see my 22 month old niece on this trip! I got 4 nights away from reality. It was exactly what I needed.

     

So what if I needed a small dosage of Xanax to get there and back. So what if I was terrified for 20 seconds that we were going to land in the water? The 5 days away made it worth it. Funnily enough, when I dropped my son at school Friday before going to the airport, I cried the whole way back to my car. Mostly because I was really going to miss him, a little bit because I thought, “If my plane crashes, this will be the last time I see him.” I have a flare for the dramatic. I wanted a break so badly, but when it actually came time to leaving, I didn’t want to go. I was coming home Tuesday night, by Monday night I missed home so terribly a part of me wished I was going home that night. Two nights away wouldn’t have been enough, but four was one too many. A little tip for any of you considering a break from reality.

I may not ever really get over my fear of flying, but I will find ways around it, ways to manage it. Otherwise I will miss out on so much.

What fear do you feel and do it anyway? What don’t you want to miss out on?

Linking up with Essentially Jess for I Blog On Tuesdays 

Things I Know : About Family

Part of my family, a part I’ve really grown close to over the last 8 months, is moving 13 hours away, leaving next weekend.  It got me thinking about things I know about family.

Family is a funny thing. They can make us the happiest, the angriest, the craziest, the saddest, and they can hurt us more than anyone else. But at the end of the day, when all the bullshit is said and done, family will always have your back. At the end of the day, you can’t de-family them. Well, you can try, and some very much succeed, but they are always in your heart, or in the back of your mind, and that relationship is always “there” even if no relationship actually exists!

I moved to the other side of the world when I was 18. My sisters were 14, and 12, so I wasn’t there for a crucial part of their childhood – the growing into adults part! One sister clued into email and chat pretty quickly (yes, I moved before days of internet!) and she and I kept in touch much more than my sister who is moving and I did. I think we both thought when I moved home we’d be closer.

Then when I moved home, we had a huge falling out and didn’t speak for 2 years. She missed the birth of my son. But after 2 years, we bridged the gap, and slowly mended the cracks, just in time for our dad to pass away. The 3 of us have been closer than ever, ever since.

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Now she is moving away, and taking my niece with her. I know it’s a good opportunity for them. I know it’s not the end of the world. I know it is easy to go visit when we can. But none of that makes it any easier to know they’ll be so much further away. I know now, some of the feeling that we put my husband’s family through when we moved to the other side of the world. Only it must have been so much harder on them, because the other side of the world is much longer than  a 13 hour drive.

Every time we fought as kids, mum always said we’d be the best of friends when we were older. We thought she was nuts! Now I can see what she meant. I know that I have probably taken having my sister close by for granted. I know, that for the next 3 years, I’m going to watch my niece grow up on a computer. I know I’m going to have to get over this fear and get on a plane (or go for a few VERY long drives!) again. I know that I am going to miss my sister, and my niece, like crazy.

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What do you know? Does your family live close, or far away?

Flogging my blog today with Grace!

Talking To The Dead

Something started in our house, a few weeks (months?) ago, and at first I sort of encouraged it, but now I’m starting to grow concerned about it.

A little history – my husband’s dad passed away less than a year before I met hubby. I never got to meet him, so our son certainly didn’t get to. At least, not in this life or on this side. Then my dad passed away when Nick was just 2.5 years old. I was sad for what I had lost, but devastated for what my son was lost. He was now grandfatherless. No little boy should be grandfatherless.

Recently he has started talking about his “grandpa” in reference to the mechanic’s dad. There is a picture of him on our book shelf, and one of Nick and my dad (his “granddad”). He talks about where his grandpa lives, what he and his grandpa have done, often says, “I really miss my grandpa” and the other day he asked me if we could see him, or if he was going to call us. When I said he wasn’t going to call, he got really upset.

I haven’t had a chance to talk to his teacher, but I am guessing that someone at school may do a lot with their grandpa and Nick is taking their stories in and projecting them back into his own stories? Or perhaps he just has a really good imagination? Or maybe they’re talking about families at school?

This past weekend it started to get a bit out of control. It was no longer just a passing comment, but full blown conversations and melt downs over not being able to see his grandpa. He blamed his tantrum at soccer on missing his grandpa. I tried to use it to my advantage, and said, “Well I don’t think your grandpa would have been happy with you having a tantrum, do you?” I am not sure it really worked.

Last night when I got home from work he had apparently been talking for 10 minutes about how he missed his grandpa. Then he said his grandpa was dead, but his grandad was alive. I sat down and told him his granddad was not alive, but that I so wished he was. At this point, I was in tears. How do you explain this to a 5 year old? How do you explain that other kids get to have grandpas who take them to do fun things? I told him he was lucky because he had nanna, and baba, but I am not sure that was much consolation.

I’m seriously to the point of wondering if we need a psych/counsellor to deal with it?

But first, I’m reaching out to my fellow bloggers, my fellow IBOTers, to ask for your input?

Have you been through this? What do we do?