Up, Up and Away (or not)

5 minute read

I am fully vaccinated. Hurrah. Huzzah. Thank you Pfizer, thank you science, thank you fluke of destiny that made me live in a wealthy western country where I would be offered salvation from disease.

I thought at this point in proceedings I’d be chomping at the bit for an overpriced coffee in Terminal Two at Dublin Airport. I thought I’d wander through the shops, spraying myself with ludicrous amounts of perfume I’d never buy. Picking up magazines, one more book, and 17 liters of water wondering if I’d have to have a fight with a Ryanair boarding agent about carrying an extra bag.

But I’m not doing any of those things and I’m surprised.

On the outside, I have a perfectly good explanation. I don’t want to bring the kids on a flight. Their dad and I are vaccinated, we can wear masks, we know not to touch (or lick) everything on the airplane or if we do, we know to use copious amounts of sanitiser to neutralise any threat. We are able to hold a wee for up to three hours so we don’t have to use the same toilet as 150 other people. My kids, at three and one, can’t do any of those things. I would be worried about them. And what’s a few more months really?

And all of that is true. It is a reason, but it’s not the full story.

I have travelled a lot. I used to be on a plane monthly for work. My best friend lives in the UK so there were weekend jaunts over there and pre-kids my husband and I would go away multiple times a year. In 2017, the year before I had my first daughter, I flew to London nine times, went to Toronto for a cover shoot, did a Texas road trip, flew to Vancouver for four days for my little sister’s wedding, and was in Paris for work. It wasn’t an unusual year. I loved it and was a travel pro. I could pack in an hour, had an airport ritual, and loved travelling alone just as much as travelling with my husband or friends.

Now the idea of doing all that leaves me paralysed with fear. I know that having done so little over the last year and a half means that we have to relearn our lives again. Even the idea of going to a restaurant now seems alien to so many of us, but this feels bigger than that.

When I think of foreign travel there are so many things that pop into my mind at once that I feel almost dizzy. First, I worry about climate change and how every flight I take contributes to that. Then I think about the pandemic and the next pandemic and the unknown germs and diseases we may unknowingly be spreading and catching. I worry that travelling with my children might be putting them at risk and when I think of travelling without them, well, that’s a whole other story.

When my daughter was six months old we went to New York for a long weekend. As the plane took off all I could think was how stupid we were. Why would we do this to her, I thought? What would happen to her when the plane inevitably plummeted into the ocean? Why would we both go? Surely it would be better if we only did things separately forevermore so that she would be left with at least one parent. We were on that trip with friends so I dragged my pal, who is also a mum, aside and told her the madness going on in my brain. She nodded at me, a wry smile on her face. Yes, that’s right, it’s your first trip without your child she said, everyone goes through that panic.

And I’m sure if the world hadn’t locked down, I would have travelled a lot over the last year and a bit. Before she was 18 months old, daughter one had been to Italy four times, to Manchester once, and on a European cruise. Her sister, in contrast, has been to Longford and Clare.

I spent this week wrangling a very energetic, high-spirited 17-month-old into passport photos. We have no plans, but I needed to renew mine, and so it seemed sensible to apply for hers while I was at it. Then my husband got an email from a travel agent about package holidays to Italy in September. We had agreed to go nowhere this year, but he is unable to resist the pull of warm nights full of pasta and limoncello. In the past, I would have seen that email and booked something on the spot. Our obsession with Italy started with a trip I took to Palermo in my teens.

But I am struggling with the thoughts of foreign travel. The first Instagram stories I saw when travel reopened seemed jarring. My brain was lagging behind regulations and it seemed illegal somehow.

I’ve gotten used to it and I’m delighted for people I know in Portugal and the south of France and on my beloved Amalfi Coast. But will I go? I don’t know.

I wonder if I was younger would I have hopped on a flight already? Is it my age that’s holding me back? Am I doomed to worry about every action and decision from now until the end of my time? Or do I need to take a breath and leap back into the ocean with a belly full of pasta and the warm sun on my face? Back to wild nights spent dancing with friends in Brighton. Back to some form of reality? Back into my life?

Jennifer Stevens, July 2021