She panicked on planes. Had since a bad turbulence experience in her twenties, a fear that hadn’t faded with time the way she’d assumed it eventually would.
Outi had been embarrassed about it for years, apologizing reflexively to every seatmate, every partner, every person unlucky enough to fly beside her during a rough patch of air.
Rasmus had never once made her apologize for it.
The first time it happened with him — minor turbulence on a short flight, nothing serious — she’d started the usual apology, already bracing for the mild irritation she’d learned to expect from others.
He’d simply taken her hand, calm and unbothered, and said: “Tell me something about the trip you’re looking forward to.”
She’d been so startled by the lack of irritation that she’d actually answered, stammering through a description of the museum she wanted to visit, and by the time she’d finished describing it, the turbulence had passed and her heart rate along with it.
It became their pattern after that. Every flight, every rough patch, he’d ask her to describe something — a meal she wanted to try, a person she missed, anything at all — and the describing itself became the thing that got her through.
“You never get annoyed,” she said once, mid-flight, between turbulence-induced grip and his patient questions.
“Why would I be annoyed? You’re not doing anything wrong. You’re just scared. I’d rather help than judge.”
It was, she’d come to understand, one of the quietest forms of devotion she’d ever witnessed — not solving her fear, not pretending it away, just patiently building a small ritual to carry her through it every single time, without complaint, for years.
✦ Today’s Reflection
Does your partner have a way of helping you through a fear or anxiety without ever making you feel embarrassed about having it?
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Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc 
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