abaya

Yup, and ktsp has told me this very succinctly (when we were discussing this once)--if something goes bad, it's REALLY bad. There's no way out of it. And I am the type of person who is always thinking of a way "out" of things--in case of emergency, worst-case scenario, etc. I believe that I would be a survivor in most traumatic situations, but a plane wreck is one where I am not assured of my own personal ability to get out of a shitty situation. That bothers me. Yup. Things I never noticed, when I was younger. And I focus in on those things when they are happening--it really ups my anxiety level, when the engine is too loud, or there's a strange smell in the air (gas--which I discovered is a normal thing, after asking about it once)--and I have learned to mentally talk myself down from it, as someone else said earlier here. You know I'm all for counseling, and I've done a LOT of it (though not since living in Iceland)--but honestly, I don't think this is about the faith or about repressed anxieties.

I think it's me just plain getting older and more conscious of the various ways that I could die, and me not wanting Death By Plane Crash to be my exit from this world. A control issue, far and above anything else, I would say. I am not afraid of death, per se... but a catastrophic and extremely terror-filled death, yes. I am much more conscious of that now than I ever have been before. I think a lot about bad news, in general--how preventable things could be, or how random and unfair they are--and how no one ever deserves to die in those ways, and yet they still went through it, they are still dead, and nothing can be done about it now.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran