Air Travel. The Magical, Microscopic, Airborne STD.

Estimated time to read:  8 minutes. Kind of long; I’m sorry.  #ITookPictures. Laugh-cry emoji.

 

CliffsNotes Version:

***She lied to us.

***Second grade and everything after caused anxiety (from perceived academic discomfort).

***“Look, squirrel!!!”

***Blurred lines at work.

***She finally gets to the point in paragraph 11, which begins “I flew in a tiny-a** plane…”

 

So, I had to double back and see what we were talking about with the first post when I wrapped it up:  “So, hopefully you will join me tomorrow, when we will talk about SMART goals.  And, as of today, TOMORROW IS UNWRITTEN.” 

 

Seems that I had promised you that we would talk about SMART goals tomorrow. I’m sorry that didn’t happen. I really wanted to write yesterday.  But I thought I would feel better about having made an attempt to put on my own oxygen mask first going into the weekend if I wrapped up some other things.  Like pay the bills at the office, catch up with my EMR, and try to tie up other unraveling loose ends.

 

It seems that I may have a touch of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) when it comes to the subject of the weekend.  Remember that PTSD = trauma = stress, and I treat STD’s, so this is within my scope of practice. The PTSD originated in second grade, when I was expected to plot out a timeline of what I would accomplish with my entire life.  I believe I was supposed to be a supreme court justice by now, so basically I should have been an equivalent of the Notorious RBG at this point in my life. Google it if you are not following along. I think I’ve let myself down professionally, perhaps?  

 

So, second grade and everything after was kind of rough for me.  I experienced academic peer pressure. “Try this geometry theorem, don’t be a square, man.”  Laugh-cry emoji. Most of this stress, admittedly, was self-imposed. I somehow decided that if I didn’t get perfect test scores I was somehow much lesser of a person. 

 

So, anyway, when Friday would roll around, I would try to finish my homework before I got home from school. To me, the kiss of death was going home from school with multiple assignments hanging over my head. I would build up such anxiety over the anticipated Mental Olympics that would have to take place to get that perfect 10 score that I placed a ridiculous amount of stress upon myself. To this day, if I don’t finish charting in my EMR before Friday at 4 PM, I get that sympathetic overdrive feeling and immediately flash back to my school days in Texas.  So, we can add to the equation: anxiety (from perceived discomfort) = stress = trauma.

 

Circling back, we are supposed to be talking about SMART goals.  Spoiler alert: I’ve already written the post for the SMART goals, but I actually have a few necessary temporary departures to make before we get to that post.  I think it’s important to pave some background information. So, consider my digressions potty-breaks on “The Road Not Taken,” by Robert Frost. Since it’s June 30th today, I think we’ll get to the SMART goals post next month, but we’ll have to see….

 

I’m writing this post about air travel on the weekend. I promised myself, for my sanity, that I would not work on the weekend. See, I have a tendency to read work email and respond to it on the weekend. I just can’t let it go. I feel like a response is deserved to the sender; sometimes I even respond to promotional emails and ads. Laugh-cry emoji.

 

But, this is a blurred line. I don’t feel like writing a blog is work, per se. Probably because I’m having fun when I’m doing it. But, I’m going to take the position that work can be fun. So, see? It’s a blurred line. That makes me think of Robin Thicke. Catchy tune, even if you dislike the lyrics.

 

So, today, we are going to take a little commercial break from the blog. We’re going to talk about flying. And travel. Because both travel and flying can cause stress and anxiety in a lot of people. Tomorrow-ish I will tell you a story about my mother coming to visit me in Los Angeles. Then, I will describe my recent stresses with traveling for professional and work-related conferences. 

 

But today, I will briefly talk about this weekend’s experience of overcoming fear and opening myself to a beautiful new experience that I would’ve otherwise missed. 

 

HERE’S THE POINT.  START READING HERE.

 

I flew in a tiny-a** plane, way smaller than a tiny-house, over Los Alamos.  I was pretty scared, even though I have previously been up in the same plane with the same pilot when my son Carter was younger.  So, I knew the pilot didn’t just stay in the LA Holiday Inn last night. Well, actually, maybe he did. I guess I don’t really know.  But, he obviously did his homework and has passed the piloting board examination. So, I should have been chill.

 

Instead, I dressed up for the occasion with my best bling [And also my “I Love The 80s” T-shirt because I hadn’t done laundry in about a month.  It was the last thing available to wear. Or my ball-gown. People would have thought I’d lost my mind if I wore that on the runway (or cat-walk, whichever the case may be.)  Blurred line.] because I thought this might be my very last time to wear my glitter-sparkle rainbow sequin necklace. Laugh cry emoji. Then, plane-crash emoji. Then, skeleton emoji.

 

And then, the experience made my Gratitude Journal entry for the day.  It was number three under “3 Amazing things that happened today…” What’s really creepy is that I wrote that entry before I went up in the “tinier (that’s actually a word) than a tiny-house” tiny-plane.  This is what I wrote:

 

“I flew in a plane.  I SO did not want to go!!!!  But I’m glad I did. It was absolutely amazing.  The views. Our town. Watching the children look and point with delight.”

 

I am trying to regularly open myself up to new experiences.  If you haven’t already done so, read Michael Singer’s books about “The Untethered Soul” and “The Surrender Experiment.”  He knows what he’s talking about. I love this man, and I will be so happy to meet him one day.

 

So, that’s today’s STD. Today, stress takes the form of an airborne disease.Tomorrow, I think we’ll talk about air travel, too, and build more suspense about SMART goals. But, I may surprise you. So stay tuned. Maybe we’ll talk about dairy- and gluten-free snacks instead. Or, maybe I won’t be back tomorrow. I like to be mysterious and unpredictable like that. Don’t take it personally. We’re friends, not frien-emies.  Laugh cry emoji.

 

SUMMARY:

 

***STAY OPEN TO NEW EXPERIENCES.

 

***ONLY WORK ON THE WEEKEND IF IT’S FUN.  IF IT’S NOT, FIND ANOTHER JOB. BECAUSE PARADOXICALLY, FUN IS ACTUALLY THE TREATMENT FOR STDs.

 

***THE PHRASE, “TOMORROW IS UNWRITTEN” DOESN’T ACTUALLY APPLY TO ME.  I MIGHT HAVE WRITTEN TOMORROW’S POST YESTERDAY.