POOR VISIBILITY

While flying home on an airplane from a wonderful thanksgiving weekend with family on Sunday, the pilot came on the on the intercom and said the word visibility. Due to my anxiety and fear of flying, I always pay extra attention when I hear the pilots talk. I may or may not watch the flight attendants like a hawk during the flight to see if they react to any of the bumps and turbulence.  I watch their faces for any signs of worry or concern. The pilot mentioned some potential for a little turbulence and poor visibility the closer we get to Charlotte. I have flown more this year than ever in my life! Some trips for fun and some not so fun. I considered myself a seasoned traveler and even joked about it, until I heard the word poor visibility (that was a new one for me). We were high above the clouds and even watched the beauty of the sun rising (for reference we were on a 6:50 am flight). Way too early to travel. The flight left a little later due to visibility issues. I still get very nervous/anxious during take off. Walking down the ramp to board the plane is like walking the plank on a pirate ship to me. I try to keep my travel anxiety, flying anxiety, and anxiety in general shielded from my kids. I check my watch the second we take off and calculate approximately what time we will land. I knew we were getting closer to starting the descent down but we weren’t. We just stayed above the clouds. The plane would turn and get lower and then go right back up again. I started to worry that visibility was a problem. My head started to hurt, my stomach started to churn, and I looked for the throw up bag (just in case). For the record, I’ve never thrown up on a plane. The plane kept turning and starting to descend and then pulling back up into the air. The woman behind me said “I guess we aren’t landing.” Suddenly pure fear and panic set in. Was this it? Was the plane going to just fall out of the sky? Would the plane explode? Would we feel anything? My heart was pounding in my chest. I had my youngest son on my left and my husband across the row with our older son. He saw the look on my face and gently reached his hand out and told me it’s ok. He didn’t look overly concerned and slept pretty much the whole flight. I didn’t want to freak out our kids but I was literally freaking out. I felt trapped and stuck and just wanted off that plane immediately. We couldn’t seem to get out of the clouds and just land. In that moment, I felt more claustrophobic than any other time in my life. I felt so paralyzed with fear and stuck on a plane thousands of feet in the air. I kept looking down the aisles at the other passengers and the flight attendants to see if anyone else appeared concerned. I also kept whispering to my husband “are you sure this is normal?”  Visibility issues? After what seemed like hours stuck on that plane (it’s normally an hour and half flight), we started to descend. I always found comfort in the landing – because that meant the flight is almost over. I would watch the ground get closer and closer and find immediate relief the second the wheels touched the ground. But this flight was different, I couldn’t see the ground at all. Where were we? As we continued to descend, I couldn’t see the ground only thick clouds. I worried how the pilots could fly a plane with no visibility. Finally – with my stomach in my throat – I saw the ground seconds before we touched down. Wow! Talk about intense. It was so foggy and cloudy, we couldn’t even see the control tower. Thank God we landed safely.

I have been thinking a lot about the word visibility and how it applies to real life.

Definition of visibility 

1: the quality or state of being visible

2a: the degree of clearness (as of the atmosphere or ocean)specifically : the greatest distance through the atmosphere toward the horizon at which prominent objects can be identified with the naked eye

b: capability of being readily noticed

c: capability of affording an unobstructed view

I believe my anxiety and the last few months of grief and worry and struggle have given me poor visibility. The clouds have been surrounding me and I just couldn’t see the ground. But the ground was always there even if I couldn’t see it (just like in the airplane). The flight took longer and didn’t go as smoothly as I wanted, but it still landed on the ground safely. In life things don’t always go the way we want or plan, if you are anxious like me – you need a plan. There may be periods in life when the visibility is poor, yet the ground is still there (even if we can’t see it). The ground is always there – sometimes muddy, sometimes dry, sometimes hard, sometimes soft, but always there.  We can get through the clouds of life and see clearly again. We can get through life when it isn’t so smooth. We can handle some turbulence.  We can see the ground again.

Thinking about the poor visibility on that flight and how terribly anxious I felt made me realize how poor my visibility has been with everything going on in my life. I have stayed in the clouds and forgot how close the ground really was. I can be grounded (even when I can’t visibly see the ground). And so can you. You can see through the clouds. You can land the plane in poor visibility!