Yesterday – I did something that I would have never done 12 months ago.  In fact – I would have run screaming in the opposite direction.  Yesterday – I went flying in a light plate.

I life I have 5 big fears. 1) I am afraid of needles.  2) I am afraid of spiders.  3) I am afraid of sharks.  4) I am afraid of flying.  5) I am afraid of dying before I get the chance to to the people I love they are important.

#1 Well – I have been stuck with so many things… in so many places – that that fear is now dead and buried.  I mean, I still get a bit apprehensive (who doesn’t) but I don’t go out of my way to avoid needles or injections anymore – I just tell whoever is giving it to me I don’t like ’em.  They usually go “no shit”.

#2 & #3 Summer has put a real dent in number 2 for me .  She will literally climb a wall to catch and methodically tear limbs from spiders before leaving a wiggling torso on the ground.  We don’t have spiders in the house anymore.  Number 3 is just illogical.  I mean… I don’t really go to the beach… we holiday in the snow… my chances of even seeing a shark unless its on an Attenborough special are extremely low.

#4 So we come to number 4.  I have had a long standing fear and hatred for flying – it gives me anxiety attacks, I think is pretty much the only thing now days that does – well… it used to.  A few weeks back I agreed to something I would have never done a year ago.  I agreed to go flying with a good friend of mine DG.  I trust DG – very much… but flying… I don’t think I trust the physical act if that’s possible.  Anyway, on Saturday I went up in a small (extremely small – like half the size I was expecting) light plane.  And… I actually enjoyed myself… Okay so, I still worked myself up a little while DG did “secret pilot stuff” including measuring the fuel int he planes tanks with a stick (that was pretty much the peak of my panic).  12 months ago I had trouble getting on a commercial liner – yesterday I got in a plan that nearly saw me sitting on DG’s lap.  I think this event, more than anything else, has been an indication on how far I have come as a person.  I don’t perceive fear like I used to.  I don’t fear like I used to… I would say that’s one of the good things that’s happened.  With the good there is always the bad… I have lost touch with a lot of the empathy I had.  Its not that I don’t care – its more, now I rate thing in my head according to seriousness…. I suppose because I have an idea of what “serious” is now… some things and events don’t rate a mention to me anymore… And I feel a little bit bad about it… but I can’t seem to reconnect with that part of me.  Maybe there is a reason for that?  Maybe that’s a part of me hardening up?

Anyway – I owe DG a big thank you.  That was a once in a lifetime experience.  I lay in bed last night just thinking about it… thinking about the noises, the bumps, the tiny little towns and the fluffy fluffy little clouds…. I am very luck to have had the experience… because I got a lot out of it.

As for #5…. I don’t think that will ever be too far from the front of my mind now… I can’t escape the fact that I am a time bomb.  I don’t know when I will flare next, I don’t know if it will cause a bowel obstruction… and I don’t know if it will be the one that takes me.  I have to keep thinking that I have been lucky so far…  The faint ticking in the back of my head is driving me to experience as much as I can – while I can.  I suppose that’s a lesson for everyone – people with bowel conditions and normals… the clock is ticking for all of us.  Don’t put things off until tomorrow because there just might not be one.  I suppose that’s one good thing about #5 – I am aware that the clock is ticking, as everyone’s is, I suppose that pushes me to live in the moment a little bit more.