Category: Near Death Experience Airways

It sucks to be me

I’m about to contradict the mood of my previous posting so bear with me…

Mama Benchly is a bit of a drama queen. And if you tell her I said that, I’ll forever deny it. She has a tendency to make situations in life seem more traumatic or intense than they really are. She’s the one who, during the Cold War, when asked if our family could build a bomb shelter, sat down on the porch with her two youngest children (I was 9 at the time) and said, “if there’s a third world war, life wouldn’t be worth living so our family will sit out here on the porch and wait to die.” She’s also the woman who treats every goodbye as the last goodbye, even if you’re just leaving the room to go to the kitchen. You’ve probably noticed by now, from the extremes of my blog postings, that I’ve inherited the same emotional genes as my mother.

A little over a year ago, I met a woman named San Fran Girl (long-term friends of mine will notice I’ve dropped a certain adjective from her nickname). Emotions between us became very intense very quickly, so much so that, within weeks, we had purchased plane tickets for a week-long vacation in San Francisco. And unfortunately, this trip turned disastrous when the pendulum of our emotions swung unexpectedly to the other extreme. When the roller coaster came to a complete stop, I was torn apart by what amounted to only a 3-month experience.

I took quite a bit away from my brief encounter with San Fran Girl, but what impacted me more than anything else was my new mindset that I plagiarized from a souvenir button I purchased while San Fran Girl and I were in New York City to see the Broadway show Avenue Q: “It Sucks to Be Me.” After our falling out, when I felt like life couldn’t possibly get any worse, this $5 button, purchased to support various charities, seemed to perfectly summarize my woes. She dumped me? It sucks to be me. My car died? It sucks to be me. I’m frustrated with my job? It sucks to be me. I ride the Loser Cruiser? It sucks to be me. I wore the button like my Scarlet Letter of Rejection. And for nearly a year, I believed its message.

Last month, I pinned my “It Sucks to Be Me” button on one my traveling bags and headed off to the airport for the first leg of my Ultimate Road Trip: New Orleans (URT 2). After numerous delays, no guarantee that the flight would take off, and the Near Death Experience airline representative saying “if the flight doesn’t take off tonight, we can’t get you on another one for 6 days,” I decided my only option was to get a full refund, rent a car, and drive to Long Island where the URT 2 was set to begin in just 12 hours. I drove the 6-hour trip on one cup of coffee, one cup of hot chocolate, two sodas, and one and a half tanks of gas. My thought at the time: it sucks to be me.

And then the URT 2. Our below-sea-level room flooded during the pseudo-tropical storm and drenched half of my clothing; halfway through the trip, my college friends and I all realized that maybe a week was too long to spend in each other’s company; half of my time-alone day was spent in the hotel room because of the rainstorm and the other half was spent outside and drenched because of the rainstorm; I ran out of money two days before the end of the trip; our swamp tour lacked all wildlife except the occasional and inaudible (English?) comments from our is-he-taking-a-nap? tour guide Glenn; we drove through the night to get home and I woke up in the backseat early in the morning fairly certain that I was the only person awake in our car; I was dropped off near the Brooklyn Bridge at 7 a.m. with no certain idea of how to get to Manhattan; I took the wrong train, which ultimately put me in Harlem; and my full refunded plane ticket meant I didn’t have a return flight home and thus, had no sure way of getting back to Vermont. But for the first time in nearly a year, my thought process wasn’t blinded by the easy-explanation-button. It didn’t suck to be me and here’s why:

Despite the room flooding, I had a roof over my head and (though dirty) dry clothes on my back; I realized that although my college friends and I were spending too much time together, we were dealing with it and making the best of the situation, thus showing the maturity we had gained since college; I spent a day alone in a big city, which is something I never would have had the courage to do a year ago; one of my friends lent me money trusting that I would pay her back in two days; unlike the obnoxiously loud motor boat rides, our swamp tour was in a canoe(!) and I got to paddle(!); we drove through the night to get home and how many people can say they drove from New Orleans to NYC in 23 hours?; despite the short detour, I ultimately arrived at Mia Wallace’s Manhattan apartment where I had a warm bed, a hot shower, and a great friend to keep me company for the day; my trip ended thanks to the 4X100 relay team of the Metro North, True, Sister #2, and Brother-in-Law #1 who all took time out of their days to ensure that I got home safely.

As the Metro North train approached the Connecticut station where my friend True was waiting to pick me up, and as I approached the exit, the traveling bag on my shoulder caught itself on a train seat. In my effort to free the bag, I ripped off the It Sucks to Be Me button, which fell to the floor. With enough time to pin the button back on my bag, I bent down, picked it up, and placed the souvenir in my pocket.

Near death…and back before dinner

Last Tuesday night, I found myself sitting in Row L in the Flynn Theatre enjoying a Dan Bern and Ani DiFranco concert with three very random people:

1. My former boss from summer camp (aka, my father’s associate pastor);
2. Her husband (aka, my sister’s ex-boyfriend); and
3. A woman I had never met before but whose entire immediate family I worked with at said summer camp; who hours earlier left a voicemail message on my phone offering me a free ticket to the performance.

I think, for 90 minutes, I was in love with Ani. If you’ve never seen her perform, and I hadn’t until then, I suggest you check her out while you can. She’s the tiniest performer I’ve ever seen but her energy and talent equaled or bettered anyone I’ve ever seen…except maybe Weird Al.

12 hours later, I boarded the US Airways Near Death Experience Plane to visit Ms. Parker. The turbulence was so rough, my seat left my seat during the flight. I suppose I can say I experienced weightlessness for that split second. Considering the food I ate at Thanksgiving, it was a nice feeling despite the underlying feeling of terror. During our descent, the high winds knocked the plane around like a cat batting a mouse. When we were over the runway, there was a gust of wind that turned the wings nearly perpendicular to the ground. If we were any closer to the ground, we might have lost a wing. Ultimately, we landed safely and the cabin erupted into a heartfelt round of applause.

6 days later, two days after returning home safely from my trip on a less-than-exciting flight, I found myself driving home from work through a terrible snow/sleet/ice/rain storm. The weather was turning my 50-minute commute into a 90-minute one. Halfway home, I crossed a bridge, hit a patch of ice and lost control of Inga (evidently, there’s real truth to those “Bridges Freeze Before Roads” signs). I fish-tailed twice, skidded down the road sideways for a second and rammed the front right corner of Inga into the guardrail on the right lane side of the road. When the dust settled, I found myself staring down oncoming traffic from the driver’s seat of a stalled car with its butt in the right lane. I restarted the car, pulled onto the shoulder, got out to see my front bumper nearly pressing against my front tire, called 911, and waited for the cop and the subsequent tow.

People always talk about these “life flashing before your eyes” moments like you have enough time to think of anything other than how to avoid death. On the plane, yes, I had the entire flight to pray, think of my family and loved ones, and thank my morbid self for the will I always leave on my bedroom desk each time I fly. In my car, though, the only thought I had time to think was “this could be it” and it’s because of this that I fear my last words are doomed to be terribly ineloquent. After the near death experience, however, I had PLENTY of time to think. And these were my thoughts:

1. There’s no reason to be afraid to change careers;
2. There’s no excuse not to write the story that’s been in your head for 5 years; and
3. There’s no reason not to tell her how you feel.

I doubt that hearing of near death experiences is as powerful and rewarding as surviving them, but that should never stop you from trying to learn from them. Thus, know that I learned that I have the power to live the life I desire. And if I ignore my passions and desires and I fall victim to apathy, I risk a fate far worse than death.