PANICKED!

Yo, from Kauai! (Aloha is a haoli cliche:)

Last Monday I was packing to come here when our son appeared with dinner. He has always been a thoughtful guy.

Four hours later I threw up for the first of many times. I won't bore you with more details but before long I knew I wouldn't either finish packing, or get on a plane the following day. I had food poisoning.

I panicked.

Jerry didn't get sick because he microwaved his food and dodged the bullet. There he was, smiling, bags packed, boarding passes printed and practicing his hula moves when I staggered past muttering, "Sick, going to bed."

Poor man, he did everything possible to will me back to health and a vertical position but, no way. To cut this short--we left a day late and I felt like h-ll the whole way.

Panic is the word that's important here. An enclosed aircraft cabin does nothing for my peace of mind, in fact I have had panic attacks in those situations. But this was the first time I sat on a plane, uncertain exactly how my body would behave at any given second--for six hours--with poor little children screaming in front of me the entire time.

I panicked.

I froze and shivered.

I put my back out with those shivers.

Stop, Stella, stop. In the past few days I've realized that I have a pretty standard reaction to difficult situations. You've guessed it, I do the "p" thing. So I decided to actually think about what makes me panic and how I can cope with these nasty moments.

It's all so simple, it's pathetic, and the answer (at least to the trigger) came to me this afternoon when I was looking for dental floss at WalMart. Narrow aisle. Carts to the right of me and carts to the left of me. And noise, incredible undulating sounds of voices yelling about toothpaste--when they weren't "telling" their children to "be quiet."

I couldn't get out because I couldn't get anyone's attention. My "excuse me," wasn't even heard. Taps on shoulders went unnoticed. Just as when I was feeling so sick on the plane, I wasn't in control. I couldn't impact my own situation.

Of course, today I could do something about being packed in at that shop; I could push myself between shelves and carts until I popped out of the end of the aisle (bit like toothpaste out of a tube) and into the relative madness of a larger area. From there--leaving the dental floss behind, I scrambled for the doors and the air outside.

But even when I could do something to change what was happening to me, I still panicked first.

Now I am completely convinced that I fear a group of things very strongly. Being out of control, being a burden on others, drawing attention to myself, enclosed spaces and crowds. Oh, great--I should have everything fixed in a day or so, maybe less.

Whew, I've got that out and I feel sooo much better. I'll start working on that fix right away.

This is a bit like asking you to go out in your underwear, but does something scare you? What do you do about it?

Mahalo! Stella