For many of you this probably doesn\u2019t seem like the biggest accomplishment in the world, but for me it\u2019s been all about getting over my fears. For the last 11 years I have never gone back to Canada without my husband. Partially because I just hate being apart from him, but also because he acts like a buffer for me when I fly.<\/p>\n
I gained a lot of weight over the years while I was living here and the bigger I got the more I hated flying. I tolerated it when my husband would come with me because I\u2019d just take a seat on the aisle with him next to me, that way I didn\u2019t have to worry about being squished up next to a stranger. The stranger thing also had multiple levels of discomfort. Firstly, I just hate being that close to someone I don\u2019t know. I\u2019ll always put a seat between me and the stranger in the movie theater, I\u2019ll choose an empty row of seats on the tram or train rather than sit next to someone. Antisocial? I dunno, but that\u2019s just how I am. On top of that, with my weight issues and insecurity about that, I loathed the thought of sitting there all tense and trying to squeeze myself into a smaller form so that my hip doesn\u2019t invade someone else\u2019s seat or my shoulders don\u2019t allow them to sit comfortably, or worst of all\u2026 put them through an entire flight without an arm rest because my giant butt won\u2019t let it go down.<\/p>\n
These are the thoughts of a fat person when they have to fly somewhere.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s funny because you hear a lot nowadays about overweight people and flying. How they are thinking about making them pay for two seats or tax them higher, how people hate sitting next to them. Hell, even one very famous over weight person was removed from a flight<\/a> because the pilot felt it was unsafe because he didn\u2019t fit properly in a single seat.<\/p>\n That horrified me. What if that happened to me and I was all alone? I\u2019d be mortified! It scared the bejesus out of me and for 11 years I let that get in the way of me going home on my own to see my family. So we\u2019d only go every 2-3-4 years when we could afford for us both to go.<\/p>\n There have always been a lot of arguments FOR me going home alone. I\u2019d get to spend more time just with me and my family, it\u2019s crazy expensive for us both to go home, if I go by myself then we have all of his vacation days to do other things. It all makes a lot of sense, but I never cared. I was not going home alone, no way, no how.<\/p>\n When I made the 101 List, I decided to add it because it\u2019s something I knew I had to do. My mother had already come here once by herself, yet I wouldn\u2019t. I HAD to get over my issues with flying by myself and make the effort to break the ice so that I could get home more often.<\/p>\n My first plan of attack? LOSE SOME FUCKING WEIGHT! Pardon my French.<\/p>\n Flying wasn\u2019t the only thing that my weight got in the way of<\/a> over the years. There were a thousand reasons for me to take control and try to do something about it, but my upcoming flight definitely served as some major motivation not to give up along the way. I was going to fit into that seat come HELL OR HIGH WATER<\/em>!<\/p>\n
![\"family\"](\"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/family_thumb.jpg\" "\\"family\\"")
<\/a>