Balloon dream
By Barbara Thompson
Most of my life I have been a very anxious person with no great goals in my life. Being a person with low self-esteem felt useless in life having done very little because of my anxiety. I have been seeing a counselor for a few years for depression as well. This particular time she told me to go home and write a list of things I would love to do if I didn't have anxiety. My list included some simple things and some daring; I plucked up enough courage and picked something daring. Flying on a Hot Air Balloon was my choice. So we made a contract; I went home and rang around and found a company called Balloon Sunrise. The date for the flight was March 30th 1999; I was to get a wake up call at 4.15am, a time I was not used to. As it turned out I didn't get any sleep anyway, I was far too anxious to sleep. My anxiety was very high, but I had learned about cognitive thinking, so I was able to control my thoughts and stay as calm as I could, but all the time thinking I wished I had someone to go with me.I arrived in time to see the men blow up the balloons, gathered around were five couples, immediately I felt so lonely, as usual the only single person there. Then one of the ladies came over to me and said something that would make me think very different about myself after. She said how courageous I was to come by myself, she couldn't. Then just about everyone came over to me to express the courage I had to come by myself. We were at last told to get in the basket, it was then I thought, "Well I can't get out of this now." Before we knew it, we were floating upwards very slowly, so I just seemed to relax and experience the ride. As we climbed higher and higher everything seemed so quiet and peaceful. It was then I just seemed to enjoy the view I had in front of us, it was absolutely magnificent.
I was relaxed enough to recognize that we were soaring over the suburb of Northcote, when all of a sudden I yelled at the woman next to me, "there is the flat my friend Voula lives in." I was so excited I was wishing my friend Voula would come out on the balcony so she could see me. I felt so lonely that I was wishing someone I knew could see me up in this big balloon. A dream come true for me, but no-one to share this once in a lifetime experience with. It got less lonely as we were all laughing at the things people were pointing out, and the things they were saying. Sometimes it was silent, only interrupted by the noise of the gas flame every now and then to keep the balloon up at 1500 metres. Imagine a person as anxious as me so high up with no apparent anxiety at all (amazing). As the time came for us to land we seemed to just float down slowly, the ground below us becoming closer and closer, until we finally hit the ground. A dream adventure safely over! As we all got out of the balloon I was on such a high as I have ever been in my life and I WAS STANDING ON THE GROUND.
I thought positive about what I had done and what I had achieved that morning of the 30th March 1999. I did something I always wanted to do most of my life, and as the people said to me how brave I was to do that by myself.
So I thought I may be lonely and anxious, but at least I was a Courageous Lonely anxious person! I don't think I would feel that high ever again. My head was spinning as I thought about what I had achieved my BALLOON DREAM finally over. What next I thought. Maybe PARACHUTE JUMPING? Just kidding!
By Barbara Thompson
