Sweet Release.......

The air hostess made her customary announcements, the lights dimmed, the flight started its take-off run, everyone settled down, to what they did best in a flight. But today, she did not pull down the shutter of the windows on her row. She also did not clutch her stomach and wince in pain, psychosomatic they called it. She, who had always asked for aisle seats away from the emergency exits, inspite of the life-consuming fear of dying in a plane-crash. She, who prepared herself meticulously for a flight, with the earplugs, lozenge, lukewarm water, even sedative from time to time.

Today, she had asked for a window seat, with the confident smile but unsure heart. She refused the ear-plugs, took out the magazine and leafed through it. When the take-off run started, she kept aside the magazine and looked out. She watched as the fields rushed past her. She watched as the plane released its hold on the ground and took flight. She watched as the houses and cars and everything worth mentioning faded into oblivion. For the first time ever, she smiled as the clouds embraced the plane, as the first rays of the sun split into a million different shades and welcomed her to the sky. How had she never seen these sights before. Had her fear and paranoia blinded her so much.

She remembered the first time she ever boarded a flight, as a child of seven. And every subsequent flight thereafter. She hadn't stepped into an aeroplane between the ages of 12 and 20. Family vacations had to be planned, keeping in mind that air travel was not an option. She did not attend her grandmother's funeral, cos immediate travel would mean taking a flight. All this for the so called fear of flying.

And honestly, what was it that she was afraid of. It wasn't aeroplanes as such. It was more like the amalgamation of all her fears... of closed spaces, of heights, of losing control. The anxieties were many but none that she could pinpoint and work on. Or maybe, she did not want to deal with them. She has settled into this comfortable symbiotic relationship with her fears, where she let them fester in her and they, in turn, allowed her to hide her incapabilities and incompetences.

But not today. As the flight started its descent, fast moving visuals of crasing planes invaded her mind. But she refused to let herself drift away into another spate of helplessness and unease. She would take it as it comes. As the flight touched down, her stomach lurched but she did not panic. She felt this calm descend on her, reassuring her that all was fine. She was fine and would be as long as she let herself be. As she stepped out of into the misty cool air, she felt elated and free, such was the sweetness of being released of one's fears.