Day Four – Vertigo Will Not Beat Me. Much.

Today I managed to get up to the 2^nd deck to eat breakfast in the restaurant (this was the first and last time I ate in the restaurant, once I discovered that room service was free), and although it wasn’t as horrible as it could have been, it wasn’t fantastic, either. Forced myself to walk around some, then it was back to the room.

Being exhausted and taking power naps helped pass the time, which is unfortunately how I spent the first day and a half – merely passing the time and muscling through hour by hour.

That night I cautiously ventured to the top deck, which again wasn’t so bad but wasn’t so great, either, and after I’d been out fifteen minutes longer than the last excursion, I headed back down. On the way, I heard music coming from the theater. There was a musical review going on, and although it was a bit vanilla for my tastes, it helped me get through another hour. I was pretty proud of myself by the time I headed back to my room.

Okay, I gotta admit something. While I’ve, proudly, never seen Titanic, I’ll be damned if I wasn’t sorely tempted, on more than one occasion, as I was standing on the deck feeling the sea breeze whip around me, to spread my arms and shout, “I’m king of the wooooooooooooooooooooooooooorld!” It’s the vast expansiveness that does it, I think. And if a cynic like me can be susceptible to it, then we can’t really blame Michael Scott for giving in to the urge, can we?

But seriously, it wasn’t until those moments when I was walking around the decks staring dumbly at the ocean that it hit me what I was doing and where I was in the world. I found myself wondering how many souls had passed through the exact spot I was passing through at that exact moment. And how many living things were swimming in the sea below me.


And what the hell I was doing, for god’s sake.

I also had a realization this day. As a person who’s struggled with ingrained anxiety her whole life, I’m very familiar with unfounded fears. But today it occurred to me that unfounded fears aren’t such a big deal. It’s the founded fears that are the real problem. Having been worried about how the motion of the ship might affect my dizziness, and having been, it turns out, justifiably concerned, was much worse than if I’d been worried for nothing. Having a good reason to be afraid is never a good thing. In fact, I tend to count on things never being as bad as I imagine, because things could never possibly be as bad in real life as they are in my head, right?

The only upside to the motion sickness was that I was so preoccupied with muscling through the vertigo that I didn’t have time to be worried about The Impending Flight.

It’s the small victories, see.