The Jetplane

it's true sometimes that when we watch someone get on a plane, we fear that we might never see them again. i credit those fears to the horrific song "leaving on a jetplane", and the fact that the person who sang it actually never landed alive. that, and the era of plane crash movies supplied by hollywood during a century in which we depend on 747's to get us from A to B. who in their right minds would ever fly again?

just this week, i had to watch my parents and youngest brother go through customs and get on a plane headed for home. it was agony. as soon as we got to the airport, that song played in my head. as unreligious as i am, i instinctively called on god to take them home safely. they got home safe, but my fear of planes crashing is still uneased. is the fear of crashing in a monster of a machine spiralling thousands of meters down towards the grounds at hundreds of kilometers per hour... unrealistic? perhaps. we're more likely to be killed by bulls than to crash in a plane, and that's a fact. so why am i so scared everytime i get near the airport? i'm telling you... it's that damn song!

it's not just a common fear of flying... it's a fear that causes you to lose sleep and your appetitite (and everyone who knows me knows i LOVE food), your hair starts to drop off at an even more alarming rate (school stress started it first), your cat hisses at a zombie pacing up and down the hallway, and you end up rocking yourself back and forth sitting cross-legged on your bed, mumbling, "there's no place like home, there's no place like home" over and over again. granted, that's an exaggeration, but i must emphasize it nonetheless. it's not madness. it's a strain of stress that evolved over the years to turn a normal human being with all the normal stresses into the living dead with abnormal blips on the heartrate monitor. am i obsessed? absolutely not. but i should sue anyone who is still re-recording that damn song and selling it to the flight-loving community. that's all i have to say.