Fate Interrupted

1. Flight Home

Ren

November 2009

Oh god, here we go. It's coming on again. 

Breathe, Ren, just breathe. How'd my life turn out like this? Stop. Just stop thinking about it.

Too late. My body temperature is rising, and my heart rate is picking up speed—palpitating in my chest more like the heartbeat of a bird and not of a twenty-nine-year-old woman.

I know it looks like I'm afraid of flying to the other passengers on this flight as I grip the armrest with my cold, clammy hand and pop my pill, but that's not what this is about. My life has turned 180 degrees in the past year and a half, and the shock of it all still hits me in rolling waves from time to time.

I'm turning thirty soon, and it's yet another bullet point to add to my list of anxiety-producing facts about myself. I thought I had my life all planned out. Everything I ever wanted was mine, put together neatly and on display in posed photos posted on Facebook. But that's all gone now—dissolved, with only smeared and blurry memories left. Like a once beautiful chalk painting streaked on the sidewalk in the rain.

Ding-ding.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Flight 453 with service from New York to San Francisco. We are waiting for one more passenger to board and will be taking off shortly. Thank you for your patience."

What! This long-ass flight has already been delayed. The universe just seems to want to punish me at every turn! 

Breathe. You're just in airplane hell. It's fine.

Figures. One interruption after another. My life is totally stalled out, reversing, actually. I mean, after eleven years of living in New York, I'm heading back to live with my mom with my tail between my legs. A loser with a capital L? Yeah, that's me—right here.

I shift uncomfortably in my seat. It's too tight in here. I need more air! My eyes dart up, and I turn the knob of the vent above me on full blast.  I wish I could get up and walk around, but I'm stuck here. Rapidly, I scan the aisles of the plane. Only a few seats are left. One of them being next to me. God, I hope this person shows up soon, but please, god, just please, not next to me.

My one solace right now is this middle-seat buffer I have between me and a middle-aged woman whose resting face sports puffy lips and a deep frown like a Pacific Rockfish. Pulling out my bag, I switch my iPhone back on and text my best friend Sydney that we will be delayed... again.

After I finish my brief text, I switch my phone off and stow it and my bag well under the seat with my foot so the stern flight attendant doesn't harass me about it again. Apparently, I already can't do life properly; I don't need someone else making me feel even more incompetent.

Distracting myself by reading seems like the only way to calm my nerves, so I pull out the two books I brought with me on the flight. The one on top is the one my mom sent me: 'Fresh Start. A Divorce Recovery Workbook.' I sigh and stuff the book back into the seat pouch in front of me, and instead open the book Sydney had urged me to buy: 'Eat, Pray, Love.'

I still haven't read it or watched the movie. Sydney raved about it, telling me it was "absolutely the perfect book for me to read right now" and to "just get through the first chapter," whatever that meant.

I flip to the first chapter, and my stomach drops like the plane has fallen straight out of the sky. Yet here we are, still firmly on the ground. I slam the cover closed.

Is Sydney playing a sick joke on me?

My still-recovering tummy tells me not to do it, but I can't help myself. Slowly, I open the book again and re-read the very first sentence.