32,000 Feet Between Me and Myself

The strangest office in the world is a pressurized aluminum tube hurtling through the sky at five hundred miles an hour.

People think flight attendants spend their days serving drinks.

Sometimes we’re serving grief.

Sometimes divorces.

Sometimes honeymoons.

Sometimes people flying home because somebody died.

Sometimes business deals worth millions of dollars.

And sometimes we’re serving Diet Cokes while trying very hard not to think about our own lives.

I have spent years trapped inside a metal tube with more emotional baggage than anything checked beneath the aircraft.

The funny thing about flying is that there is nowhere to go.

No long walk.

No disappearing into your bedroom.

No driving down Pacific Coast Highway with the windows open.

No swimming.

No therapy appointment.

No dramatic exit.

Just—

Ding.

Seatbelt sign.

Coffee?

Ice?

Chicken or pasta?

Meanwhile, your mind quietly begins replaying the greatest hits of your entire nervous system.

The conversation you wish had gone differently.

The person who never chose you.

The text you should not have sent.

The relapse.

The victory.

The rent.

The lawsuit.

The grief.

The father you miss.

The brother who should still be here.

The version of yourself who keeps asking whether you have finally figured any of this shit out.

For years, I believed my job in those moments was to think harder.

Analyze harder.

Find the missing insight.

Connect one more psychological framework.

Maybe Carl Jung knows.

Maybe Internal Family Systems knows.

Maybe polyvagal theory knows.

Maybe Machiavelli.

Maybe Jesus.

Maybe neuroscience.

Maybe another journal.

Maybe one more podcast.

One more conversation.

One more explanation.

If I can just intellectualize this enough, maybe I will finally feel okay.

The problem is—

Thirty-two thousand feet is a terrible place to outrun yourself.

Because eventually there are no more theories left.

Only feelings.

“Thirty-two thousand feet is a terrible place to outrun yourself.”

That was the realization waiting for me beneath years of journals, therapy notes, timelines, recovery plans, parts maps, and closure documents.

I was not lacking wisdom.

I was struggling to stay connected to it when I was activated.

There is a difference.

So there I am.

Walking down the aisle.

Smile.

Coffee.

Smile.

Turbulence.

Smile.

And somewhere in my head, I hear her.

Lucy.

She is not wearing a halo.

She is wearing pearls.

Red lipstick.

A perfectly pressed vintage flight-attendant uniform.

Clipboard in hand.

Looking at me like she has just caught me cheating on my own recovery.

I sigh.

“Okay, Lucy.”

“I’ve done the journaling.”

“I’ve mapped the parts.”

“I’ve named the attachment wound.”

“I’ve connected every goddamn dot.”

“I’ve practically earned a PhD in why I am the way I am.”

“So what the fuck do I do with all of it now?”

She does not answer immediately.

Of course she doesn’t.

Lucy never rescues.

She redirects.

Finally, she looks up from the clipboard.

“Feel it.”

That’s it.

Not explain it.

Not perfect it.

Not turn it into another metaphor.

Feel it.

Because maybe the lesson was never meant to stay inside my head.

Maybe wisdom is not information.

Maybe wisdom is what remains after the information finally enters the body.

My body had been telling the truth long before my mind stopped negotiating with reality.

Recovery was never supposed to be the collection of better ideas.

It was supposed to be returning to the body.

Protecting sleep.

Eating something real.

Drinking water.

Moving.

Checking the facts.

Calling someone safe.

Turning off the phone.

Choosing the next honest action instead of one more brilliant explanation.

Which is a terrifying assignment for someone who built an identity around understanding everything.

Feeling means uncertainty.

Feeling means grief.

Feeling means admitting that no amount of insight can change what happened.

Some people will never apologize.

Some relationships will never become healthy.

Some dreams expire.

Some questions do not receive answers.

Feeling means sitting in Row 3L during boarding with tears threatening to ruin your perfectly ironed uniform while asking a passenger whether they would prefer sparkling or still.

Nobody trains you for that in flight-attendant school.

They teach decompression.

Firefighting.

Medical emergencies.

Crowd control.

Water landings.

Nobody teaches you what to do when your own heart loses cabin pressure.

Maybe that is why Lucy exists.

Not because she is here to save me.

She is here to remind me that I already know enough.

The journals were never asking me to become smarter.

They were asking me to become more honest.

More present.

More willing to stay.

The deepest question is no longer:

“Why am I like this?”

It is:

“Can I stay with this feeling long enough that I do not abandon myself trying to escape it?”

That is the difference.

My whole life, I thought healing meant finding the perfect interpretation.

Now I wonder whether healing is something quieter.

A breath.

A glass of water.

A meal before making life decisions.

A walk after landing.

Calling someone safe.

Turning the phone off.

Looking out the aircraft window somewhere over Kansas while the sunset turns the clouds gold and realizing—

The answer was never hiding in another theory.

It was hiding in my willingness to remain inside my own body.

Maybe that is why airplanes have always felt strangely sacred to me.

You are suspended between where you have been and where you are going.

You cannot go backward.

You cannot arrive any faster.

You cannot force the weather to clear.

All you can do is stay with the ride.

Stay with the breath.

Stay with the body.

Stay with the version of yourself who once believed survival meant leaving.

Lucy closes the clipboard.

Looks at me.

Smiles that infuriating, compassionate smile.

Then she says the only thing left to say.

“Welcome aboard.”