Vive Ut Vivas {#TheBigCollab2k16}

Vive Ut Vivas

The background burrr noise of the aeroplane engines had been a strangely comforting tone for the long-haul flight.  Several hours of eardrum numbing compression inside a glorified metallic can was not exactly my most favourite of travel arrangements.  Granted, there were very few means of travel that I enjoyed; boats made me seasick, buses caused me obscene levels of anxiety, and planes always felt like imminent death traps. 

Bottom line - I really disliked travelling.

I never used to.  Man, when I was a teenager I'd be buzzing to travel anywhere in the world.  I'd take a donkey and cart through the Middle East if it meant I got to explore the world. Sadly I never got that far. At eighteen my life stopped, or at least I felt it was cruelly snatched from me. Like fate had dangled me a splendid carrot then tossed it just out of reach.

I blow out a sigh - best not to go back there in my mind, I'll only make my nerves worse!

I glance out the small, oval, window.  The fluffy clouds have created a blanket underneath the plane as it contentedly zooms towards its destination, and with each mile it travels my tummy flutters a little more and my heart stutters uncomfortably.

I feel the twinge of an early brewing anxiety attack, something I've been forcibly fighting off since I rocked up to Dublin Airport this morning.  I frown and nibble my nail, I gotta focus on something, so I focus on the bright sun on the horizon and attempt to ground myself.  

I watch the clouds, the different shades of blue in the sky, and the sleek metallic wing of the plane as it cuts its path forward.   I hear the monotonous whir of the healthy engine and the gentle conversation of the couple in front of me.   I lift my wrist and smell my mum's perfume, the one she sprayed on me this morning, so when I got worried I could have something familiar close-by.   I taste the remains of the oat biscuit I snaffled two minutes ago, and with it I automatically reach for the second.  

I'm okay...I've got this, I am feeling fine, the sun in shining and the journey is almost at an end.

"Are those homemade?"  The teenager in the seat beside me asks tentatively.

"Uhm-yumhmm," I mumble eloquently whilst attempting to curtail the dribbling renegade crumbs from my uncoordinated lips.

The girl chuckles and flicks her jet black hair over her shoulder.  I suppress my own snigger at my legendary clumsiness and attempt to swallow my delicious biscuit a tad earlier than I would have liked. 

"Sorry," she cringes, "I have bad timing."

"No, don't be daft," I reply as I offer her the little plastic bag of biscuits.  "They are homemade, my seventy-eight year old granny is still a whizz in the kitchen, I couldn't leave without a batch of these bad boys...do you want one?"

"Whoa, that's awesome," she trills in her American twang, and animatedly nods, reaching her artfully painted nails into the bag to select a biscuit.  "Thank you so much...I'm Lori by the way."

"Vivienne," I say and point my thumb back towards myself, "nice to meet you."

Lori nods her appreciation as she nibbles the oat biscuit faster than a starving gerbil. I give her an understanding grin in return - granny's biscuits are morishly yummy.

"You visiting America?" Lori awkwardly shifts around in her seat and pops out the earbud from her left ear. Aha...feed a teenager and they'll talk.

"No, just flying home," I answer and snap a corner off another biscuit. "After visiting my old Dublin home...now that is a layered paradox."

"Yeah, I get that," she grumbles and rolls her eyes, "I am leaving dad's Dublin home to go back to Mom's Jersey home."