I know that travelling around the holidays is always crazy, and I understand that it’s to be expected. However, I spent the other day travelling and I can honestly say it was the most stressful, terrifying thing I have ever done by myself.

My friend and I were in Florida together. The hotel set up busses to the airport for us in an attempt to make it less stressful.What I didn’t realize, however, was that she was leaving at 8 a.m. while I wasn’t leaving until half past noon. Never having navigated an airport all by myself before, let alone getting to one, I was already terrified. What if I got on the wrong bus? What if, for some reason, the hotel gave me the wrong information and I missed my plane?

This turned out to be easy. After my friend left, I got all my things together and waited until it was time to leave. Getting on the bus was easy, and there was never any doubt that it was going to the right airport. I thought this would mean that the difficult part was over. Right? Wrong. I was so, so wrong.

Upon getting to the airport, I easily found my way to the security line and got in it. Security always stresses me out because, in my head, I expect it to be faster than it actually is and I get worried that I won’t have time to get to my plane after.

After getting in the line, the guy checked my ID…and was convinced something was wrong with it. I showed him my credit card to prove that my name and address were the same on both, and he still wasn’t convinced. I had to follow him while he pushed his way through the whole line, and by this point, I was terrified that I was going to be kicked out of the airport and never be able to leave Florida. Trying to hide how close to tears I was, I followed him and tried to be as polite as I could. He handed me off to a lady who gave me a full body pat down (including my hair. What could I have possibly been hiding in my hair?), and I had to watch while they took everything out of my purse and backpack.

When it was over and they let me go, I was handed a few of the plastic tubs they keep in the line that was just filled with all my belongings. They even took the bookmark out of my book with absolutely no indication of what page I had been on. How rude!

Still shaking, and still trying not to cry, I got everything back together and got away from there as fast as I could. The one good thing that came from skipping the line was that I had plenty of time to find something to eat before my flight. There was a Qdoba in the airport, and that is one of my favorite foods.

Fast forward to actually being on the airplane. It was going well for a while. I had music playing to block out the sound that the airplane makes, and after finding my spot in the book I was reading, I had that to occupy me. The first few hours went fairly well. Then it got dark. The light above my head wouldn’t work and the person next to me wouldn’t let me turn hers on, so I had to give up on reading. After two more hours of sitting around waiting, I finally got home. I wanted nothing more than to sleep for the next week and never think about getting on a plane again.