Life Without You. Liesel Schmidt

      My fate, it would seem, was literally in my hands as I stared at the flight itinerary that had been so thoughtfully sent to me by US Airways.

      I was all booked on a flight out of Pensacola to Newport News, with a three-hour layover in Charlotte. It was real, set in stone—or whatever the Internet equivalent of stone might be. The flights were set and paid for, the seats that would anchor my overanxious ass preassigned and awaiting the arrival of my rump. The plane might have been ready, but I was not.

      At least, not mentally.

      My bags were hungrily awaiting their sartorial satisfaction, and every other bit of pre-trip preparation that needed to be taken care of had been thoroughly executed. Bette was happily counting down the minutes until she could take over her pied-à-terre, and my family was all quietly celebrating the victory of finally having convinced me that I really and truly did need some time away.

      And so, less than a week after the initial proposition was made, cyberspace served up a bit of adventure and notified me that I could no longer keep the idea of a trip in that someday-maybe-I-should realm of unrealized musings.

      Best to bite the bullet.

      I clicked around awhile on my laptop, idly wondering what might be going on up in Virginia’s swingin’ city of Hampton during my month there, hoping I would find something to mitigate the overwhelming nervousness I felt.

      I shook my head, wishing I could find that almost explosive sense of glee that I had always had as a child getting ready to go to my grandparents’ house. True, I wasn’t a child anymore, but Hampton was still Hampton. What had changed more than anything, I realized as I sightlessly wandered around the world in Wi-Fi, was the fact that Grammie was no longer there. The magic she had so unwittingly brought to her surroundings was now gone—residual, perhaps, in the memories—but no longer to be captured.

      So was that what I was so afraid of? Facing that feeling of…loss?

      Or was it that I was afraid to face myself, to push myself out of the hole I had created for myself and so deeply burrowed into?

      It was safe there. It was secure.

      It was controllable.

      Nothing about this trip, if I was honest, was comfortable or truly controllable.

      Which scared the absolute you-know-what out of me.

      I picked up my phone and started punching out a text to Bette.

       Wondering what to wear on flight to Virginia…and how many in-flight cocktails are allowed.

      I plinked the words out, then hit Send.

      I stared at the message of carefree bravado on the screen.

      It sounded so que-sera-sera. So easy breezy.

      So far removed from the roil of emotions that was actually running through me.

      So very, very much braver than I felt. So very, very much the brave woman I wanted to be.

       Fake it ’til you make it.

      And I was determined to make it. Part of a new project I’d begun since booking my tickets was to make a bucket list of things I wanted to do: some were things that were completely new for me. Some were things that I’d once enjoyed but that had been cut from my life, once I’d let my fear start running the show. One of those bucket-list items was to take a trip, which I hadn’t done since before I’d gotten married, even. Once upon a time, I’d felt bold and adventurous and audacious in hitting the road or booking a flight all on my own. Anxiety had shut me off from that, had robbed me of the excitement I used to feel and replaced it with a sense of dread at being out of control, away from the zone of safety to which I’d confined myself. Taking this trip to Hampton was one way to combat that, to try to reclaim even the smallest sense of adventurousness that I used to have. I’d felt a thick mixture of fear and triumph as I’d crossed that one off my list, determined to go, even if I was in a cold sweat when departure time came.

      Another one of those bucket-list items involved flirty panties, something I’d enjoyed buying once upon a time but had stopped wearing after I got married. Finally having someone to see my flirty panties should have been a win, but the man I’d married had been less than appreciative, shooting down my confidence and making me feel as though this small luxury was completely ludicrous and extremely frivolous. Which made Buy Flirty Panties shoot straight to the top of my newly constructed bucket list.

      For anyone looking at my list, it would have seemed simple and mundane. They would likely raise an eyebrow at the normal-looking activities—those like Eat Somewhere Unsafe and Eat Cake might seem somewhat odd—but for me, a woman whose world was so ruled by the dictates of anxiety, these were things that took tremendous amounts of courage to complete. My food and restaurant choices had become driven by fear, confining me to only a limited number of meal options and places that felt safe to eat. It was part of dangerous self-denial that was a coping mechanism for the lack of control I had felt so strongly during a very vulnerable time in my life. Food was controllable—the rest of the world was not. These were steps to my own victory…

      1. Buy Flirty Panties

      2. Take a Trip

      3. Eat Somewhere Unsafe

      4. Get a Makeover: New clothes? Haircut? Make-up, etc.

      5. Break from Routine

      6. Reconnect with Family

      7. Eat Cake

      8. Go on a Date

      9. Learn to Dance

      10. Take a Long Shot