500 Series: I Should Have Been in Pisa and Florence

Plane Watching

This blog should be showing you photographs from Pisa and Florence. Instead, I'm writing about why there aren't any.

A few years ago, I shared how I overcame my fear of flying. It wasn't easy, but I got my freedom back. I boarded planes on my own, explored new places and proved to myself that anxiety didn't have to control my life.

So writing this is difficult.

Today, I should have been spending four days in Tuscany with my camera. I imagined photographing the Leaning Tower from every angle, wandering Florence's narrow streets, standing beneath its magnificent cathedral and, of course, eating my way through Italy after watching Stanley Tucci make it all look irresistible.

Instead, I'm sat at home. The fear came back. Not at the airport. Not at the gate. A week before the flight.

A bumpy flight home from Mallorca planted the first seed of doubt. It was only a passing thought, but it grew louder each day. Headlines about aviation incidents suddenly felt personal. I became fixated on turbulence, despite having completed far longer flights on my own without a second thought. Anxiety quietly erased years of evidence and replaced them with a handful of irrational fears.

To save money, I hadn't paid to reserve my usual seat. Somehow, my mind convinced me that not sitting at the back of the aircraft, on the right-hand side around row 27, made the flight less safe.

I know how irrational that sounds.

The frustrating part was knowing it made no sense. I know flying is incredibly safe. I know I've beaten this before. I know it was anxiety that was catastrophising every thought. But anxiety isn't interested in logic.

It whispers "what if?" often enough that eventually you start listening. That’s when the panic becomes overwhelming, I couldn't even bring myself to check in online.

That hurts to admit.

The hardest part isn't losing money on flights, hotels and activities. It's everything that disappeared with it. The photographs I'm not taking. The art I will not stand in front of. The food I won’t taste. The memories I won’t make.

I always measure my trips by the images I bring home, but really, it's about the moments behind them. Sitting in a quiet café. Discovering a hidden street. Watching the evening light transform a familiar landmark. Those moments are gone now, and that's something I've had to accept.

I do wonder if I have lost all the progress I've made.

I hope I haven’t.

Recovery isn't a straight line. Sometimes you move forward. Sometimes you stumble. That doesn't erase every step you've already taken. That's why I'm sharing this.

Pisa will still be there, Florence will still be waiting. So this trip hasn't disappeared forever; it's just simply been postponed. So when I finally see the Leaning Tower and the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, I'll know that the greatest journey wasn't getting to Italy, it was finding my way back to having a bit more courage.