Navigating a Delicate Balance

My last encounter with the friendly skies was in March 2020, returning from a business trip to Dallas, after the city was declared to be in a state of emergency due to COVID.

Uneasy and uninformed about COVID, my coworker and I contemplated driving home in a rental car. But we decided that choice was rash, especially since we would have to stop several times at potentially COVID-contaminated rest stops and gas stations. Staring at a possible 15-hour, non-stop, 1,000-mile road trip in a rental car, we flew home as scheduled.

In the air, I wore a mask, zealously wiped down my seat, arm rests, tray table and head rest. I didn’t touch anything other than my own arms and legs — and dared not use the restroom — for two hours and 25 minutes.

I gripped my mini-hand sanitizer and reapplied whenever I felt the need to defend myself against the virus, still clouded with a constellation of unknowns. I eyed every passenger and flight attendant with suspicion and fear — are they carriers?

Though my pre-COVID life involved several plane trips a month for work, being Zoom-bound professionally since then means I have earned no miles and seen no new vistas. I have gone from someone who thrives on being in new destinations with lots of people and experiences, to someone who reads the positivity rates and death tolls each day to gauge my comfort with living in my own zip code.

But in the coming weeks, after 19 strictly earthbound months, I am booked on two separate plane flights — one for work, one for a glorious October wedding — and am vacillating between simultaneous feelings of fear and elation. It is my first invitation to deliver an in-person keynote speech and the first invitation to an in-person wedding for almost two years.

Like many others with upcoming travel plans, I find myself juggling emotions akin to leaping off a cliff into deliriously clean, blue water. The jump itself may induce anxiety, but once in the swirling waters, the sense of joy and relief will emerge.

I certainly hope so. I ache for the era when you said someone was positive, it meant they had a cheery outlook, not a COVID diagnosis.

Of course I am very late to the plane/train/automobile/cruise ship post-pandemic return, as close friends and family have been racking up flier miles for many months. A friend recently returned from Greece; my youngest son is back from a week in Yellowstone National Park; another friend is booking her entire family plus spouses for a week in Italy; while nearly everyone on my Facebook feed seems to have gone somewhere picturesque and energizing.

Not me.

The news of France banning unvaccinated travelers, Australia requiring vaccine passports and the TSA increasing no mask fines to $500 for the first refusal to $3,000 for each subsequent maskless attempt, is at once encouraging and frightening.

That anyone booked on my upcoming trips to and from Pittsburgh and Miami just might be among the 80 million unvaccinated gives me tremors. Cautious, double vaxxed, masked and social distancing, I’m booking a booster shot before I board and praying that every stranger in the airports or on the planes will have taken similar precautions. Or at least is not belligerent.

If a mask fight on my flight erupts, I am not altogether certain which part of my instincts will kick in — fight or flight. Knowing the melee will definitely be preserved on cellphones and posted to YouTube, I may forever be the lady in the aisle seat screaming, “Put your mask on!”

Years ago I wrote travel stories as a feature writer for a daily newspaper and relished the opportunities to discover new cities, towns and hamlets, research the best venues for just about anything, and describe them artfully for the reader.

The pandemic has turned me into a homebody, but I am eager to access the part of me that has always been searching for new and beloved places to renew my sense of wonder, comfort, creativity and gratitude.

For my work trip I will be meeting people who share a vision and purpose for a better world. For my fun trip, I will be celebrating at a family wedding that will give us all a chance to witness love and connection that transcend place.

From both trips, I anticipate gaining far more than miles on my frequent flier account. I hope to find the missing parts of me.