Leaving on a jet plane

I'm on a plane, and I'd guess we're somewhere over Georgia. Brian's sitting next to the window this time. Every few minutes I glance out the window and squint through the clouds. When I see the big squares of land, I go back to reading.

I used to require that I sit next to the window. I also would walk up 10 flights of stairs to avoid taking the elevator. I'm claustrophobic. But I also want to scuba dive.

I tried scuba diving once. A rep from the local scuba place (in the middle of friggin Indiana) had come to our property to let us try it out in the pool. I didn't like it at the time. The bottom of the pool was boring and I missed coming up to the surface. And well, I felt trapped.

But I want to swim in the coral reefs. I want to see turtles and dolphins and manatees in the wild. I want to help them and save them from the things we humans subject them to. It will be a lot easier to do if I can get over my claustrophobia.

The plane just turned a little, giving me a good look at... more land.

So I'm doing it. I still hate elevators, but now I can ride in one without cutting into my palms with my fingernails. I can sit in the middle seat on the plane with my try table down and my seatbelt on. The anxious feeling of being in a cramped space full of people I don't know is dulled. I still don't like it, but as long as I have a seat, this little 3 ft by 3 ft square that I can temporarily call my own, I can bear it.

Looking out the window through the clouds again, I don't see the square plots of land. Are the clouds too thick? Then I see it, a squiggly line down the middle of the window, the shoreline dividing the land from my beloved ocean.

The kids across the aisle are excited, pointing out the boats and counting them. But I'm not looking at the top of the water, I'm looking through it to the shades of blue below.

I'm anxious again, not only to get away from all these people, but to be out in that water, floating where my feet don't touch, feeling absolutely free.