One year ago

on a journey, originally uploaded by jennaflee.

One year ago I flew on a plane for the first time. I touched the Pacific Ocean.

One year ago I was on meds for anxiety and depression.
One year ago I was neck-deep in my first solo long-term project at work.
One year ago I loved my job.

A year ago I was working with my partner-in-kind.
A year ago I was in a relationship that lacked passion and fire.
A year ago I was dreaming big dreams for how I wanted my life to be.

All of these things have changed. I’m off meds, I’ve got a few big projects under my belt at work, I’ve left Kind Over Matter, and I’ve stopped pinning my dreams on some vague point in the future and started to make them real, as I dream them up.

But I need to tell you this, though.

Getting on a plane, flying : this is my triumph, this is my victory.

All of these months later, just looking at these few photographs, it gives me such a sense of accomplishment, pride and sheer joy.

on top of the clouds, originally uploaded by jennaflee.

Because I was never going to get on a plane, I would look up in the sky and see one and it terrified me. The thought of being in one, what if it crashed? What if I got airsick? What if there was turbulence? It made me feel trapped, helpless. I spent months in cognitive behavioral therapy working on minimizing anxiety’s presence and role in my life.

I wanted to live and not merely exist.

So when I was chosen to go to my organization’s big yearly meeting to continue work on that big first solo project I mentioned, my immediate response was to put my head between my knees.

I couldn’t breathe.
My heart was pounding.
Anxiety ripped through me — or wait, was it?

When you live with it long enough, it’s easy to call anything that gets your heart racing anxiety, but I realized that it was the flip side of anxiety — unadulterated excitement.

I couldn’t put facing this fear off anymore, I couldn’t tell myself that flying, and everything it entailed, would be something I’d do at some point in the future.

The future was now, and it came with warm weather, gorgeous beaches and adventure.

san diego’s gaslamp quarter : create positive change, originally uploaded by jennaflee.

When you meet your biggest fear, when you can reach out and touch it, what happens?

When I was boarding the plane to San Diego, I traced my fingertips along the edge of the plane’s door and tossed out a prayer that it would be ok.

In yoga the other night, we were laid out in frog’s pose and Carrie, the teacher, was talking about surrendering to the moment, to whatever was going on, to just be there, be there with it. She said to keep breathing, that you’ll get through things if you just keep breathing.

That’s what I did in class, that’s what I did when I sat down in my window seat on that plane. I breathed and I cried and I jabbered at the woman sitting near me. I told her that it was my first time flying and that I was scared and asked if I could just talk with her for a moment. The plane starting moving, it was bumping along the runway, I was so scared, we were doing it, I was doing it, no turning back.

I’ve never been inside a moment that deeply before.

And then we left the ground, I was not connected to the earth at all, up up up, we were so high up. It was beautiful, being on top of the clouds. I could see so far, and it was with wonder and awe and humility that I thanked whomever was listening to my prayer.