We are leaving today for a long dreamed of trip to Italy with our friends Mark, Renee, and Annalise. Mark and Renee are the parents, and Annalise is their daughter who just graduated college this past spring. We've been friends since before Annalise was even born. This is their bucket list dream trip that we weren't sure would ever happen. Why? Well it turns out two of the three have always had a severe phobia about flying.
I won't name names to protect the innocent, but let's just say that whenever the talk of travel came up, the thought of flying was always a "Hell No!" and that was typically the end of the discussion. Something changed a few years ago and the door was cracked open.
We traveled to Florida together a few years ago to swim with manatees. While we could have driven a really long time, the allure of manatees enabled us to get them on an airplane for the first time. Mind you there were drugs, a little wine, and various incantations to make that happen, but we were able to take a direct 90-minute flight that was very uneventful.
If you've never flown before, you certainly don't necessarily know what to expect. I respect that. Is it like a roller coaster? A rocket ship? Up and down like a bird flapping its wings? Our descriptions could only do so much. Until they experienced it first hand, it was always going to be a fear. The flight down was so successful, the return flight was done sans drugs -- I think there were still incantations, but no drugs. Success!!
The manatees were two and a half years ago. Since then, we did another trip together to Nova Scotia with a slightly longer direct flight. We had turbulence on the flight home, but we survived and they now know turbulence isn't so bad.
Which brings us to today. Over two years to work through a fear of flying. Are there some nerves? I'm sure there are, but we're so happy they've met their fear head-on, realized it's not as bad as they imagined, and we're sharing a lifelong dream come true. Excited for the adventures ahead!
