A text to my best friend, noon on the dot:

I have severe aerophobia—not just nervous energy before takeoff or a few uneasy thoughts mid-flight. It’s a paralyzing fear, coursing like poison through my body until panic attacks are inevitable. My hands tremble, my breath turns shallow, heart rate pushing 140 beats per minute as if trying to outrun the terror. The moment I step onto a godforsaken plane, it’s like the walls start to press in, the cabin shrinking, and I’m desperate to be anywhere else—anywhere but trapped in a tin can.

There’s no way out. No windows to roll down, like in a car when you need to gulp fresh air because the smell of someone’s rest stop salami sandwich brings you nausea. No chance to pull over at a gas station, stretch your legs, sip a Dr. Pepper. You’re not on a bus where the rattles and jolts feel like part of the ride. You’re in a capsule, suspended between layers of atmosphere, held up by nothing but wind and wings, the silent threat that everything could change in an instant. I know it’s the safest form of travel by a long shot, even the r/fearofflying Reddit pilots confirm, but my brain abandons all logic when I’m up there. Fuck physics, we’re all going to die today. Oh god, the people on this flight look like the kind in plane crash movies. Goodbye, cruel world.

I truly believe that the human spirit was not engineered to undergo such Horrors. There is also a silly part of me that thinks that folks who are comfortable flying, or going to OUTER SPACE for that matter, are at least a little stupid. I am fully aware that you need multiple degrees and years of training to even be considered for such an endeavor. But how are you not cripplingly aware of your own mortality? How are you so willing to believe in facts and figures?

I’m kidding. Am I?

Turbulence is inherently evil. No matter how many times I’ve flown—whether crisscrossing the U.S. or cruising the Atlantic to Europe—the moment the plane hits a patch of turbulence, a trapdoor opens beneath me. That sickening drop, the momentary weightlessness, unravels me every time. Cue the silent tears, sunglasses on, faking composure and activating Cool Girl, calm and collected. Maybe the other passengers will think I’m mysterious and sexy. Maybe that’ll cure me.

It doesn’t. I just felt like an overgrown baby in a boygenius T-shirt and smeared mascara, clutching her avocado green BAGGU.

For months now, I’ve been trying to face my fears head-on. Call it exposure therapy, call it self-harm, whatever. I’ve been flying solo on short trips from D.C. to Pittsburgh, back and forth, trying to teach myself that the panic doesn’t own me. It’s a measly hour-long flight. For the most part, I’ve kept it together. No full-on breakdowns in the terminal, no hyperventilating in the shuttle to the gate. I’ve survived, though barely. But this weekend was different. My own system failed me.

Sunday, the day before my flight, I fully spiraled like the separation anxiety-ridden kid I used to be, crying for her mommy from preschool to first grade. I broke down in the middle of my crowded hometown Barnes & Noble, of all places—surrounded by books and oddly familiar faces, sobbing at the thought of takeoff. It was a mental loop of worst-case scenarios, each more catastrophic than the last. I was sure I’d be a name in the next tragic news story. What if they chose an ugly photo of me in the slideshow obituaries? Funny how vanity, whether genuine or performative, remains unscathed.

The morning of, I found myself scouring the internet for train tickets, bus passes, anything. I was willing to hitchhike or get in a car with a shady stranger. By the time my parents dropped me off at the airport, I was operating on autopilot. Check-in, security, TSA—it all happened in a blur. I was there, but not really. Derealization made me feel like I was watching myself through an early-2000s video camera.

At last, I boarded. I sat down in my window seat clutching Woody, my ratty childhood teddy bear (yes, at nearly 25, I still bring him everywhere I go). I forced down my usual SSRIs, mood stabilizers, and herbal supplements—skullcap, passionflower, chamomile, and basil—hoping they would act as armor.

Liftoff sucked, as predicted. The turbulence hit hard. Wind rocked the plane, pummeling the walls, and I could feel every minor shift in altitude. But I held on, desperate to ground myself. I put on a fruity little playlist I’d curated the night before (save me, Chappell Roan) and did my best to just look out the window and embrace my mental torture. There was something strangely calming about the clouds—how they stretched on forever, a blanket of white above and beneath us, making the world and all of its problems—capitalism, political tension, the hum of daily life—seem so small.

Now that I’m home in my cozy apartment, there’s a certain comfort in the quiet, domestic tasks of the day—unpacking, folding laundry, settling back into the stable life I’ve built for myself. My husband naps on the couch with our giant, lazy dog snoring in his lap. How I Met Your Mother plays softly in the background. A cinnamon apple candle is lit. This stillness is sacred.

Here’s what I’ve learned, or at least remembered: Brains are both brilliant and absurdly irrational. They can build entire empires of fear out of a single stray thought, but they can also be fooled—persuaded that not every bump in the road means disaster. Turbulence, literal or metaphorical, doesn’t mean the pilot has lost control. In fact, it’s just discomfort. Planes don’t just plummet from the air like Hollywood loves to depict. The sky is turbulent, yes, but it is indifferent. It holds us all the same.

Note to self: remember to watch the flight attendants—the way they stand with an easy grace, laughing mid-conversation, bodies relaxed as the plane tilts and sways beneath them. They lean casually against the cabin doors, one foot crossed over the other, as if the turbulence is a rhythm they’ve come to know by heart. Their calm is steady and unshaken, tending to first class passengers with confidence as I observe from my $79 Basic Economy seat. If they can smile, chat, pour coffee with a steady hand in the midst of the shaking, it’s a quiet reassurance that everything is under control—that the air, despite its unpredictability, will carry us safely through. If they’re steady, so can I be. Their ease becomes an anchor, a lifeline reminding me that fear is just noise. Coveted, holy ground will still be waiting on the other side.

Get on the stupid flight—because somehow, some way, you’ll make it through. Real life will always be waiting to welcome you back. A quick kiss in the arrivals lane. Lukewarm coffee on the way home.