The only place I have flown to internationally is Nigeria, and every time I’ve gone there, I’ve (or we‘ve since I’ve never flown alone) flown with a particular airline. Although I’ve only been back to Nigeria twice, my sister has been there three times, my dad three times and my mom four times, it has always been with this same airline. If I were planning a trip to Nigeria, I’d automatically book with the same airline we always use. I guess that makes me superstitious.

Flying scares me. I love the technology, and the idea that I can be thousands of miles away from my starting point in a matter of hours, but I keep hoping that technology will get to the point of teleporters in my lifetime! I love the view of the land below and the clouds around me when I’m on a plane, but when I think that I’m in a huge hunk of heavy metal, defying gravity for hours on end, I’m terrified. Turbulence doesn’t help either, and I spend a lot of time praying on flights and thankfully my prayers have always been answered (I don’t take this for granted at all).

I’m also superstitious about celebrating my birthday before the actual date of my birth. So, if my birthday is on a Monday, I would rather celebrate it the following weekend rather than the day before. This is because I always imagine if something bad were to happen while celebrating this birthday (God forbid!), news reports would say something like “She would have been (insert age).” I don’t know when I started thinking like that but it’s been several years now.

I try not to open umbrellas indoors, step on cracks or walk under a ladder, but those are more due to what I’ve heard from friends or nursery rhymes (step on a crack, break your mother’s back) than a true belief that they could lead to something ominous. I will knock on wood if someone says it, and I’ve said it to people before, but more to use the expression than anything.

I don’t believe in fortune tellers or psychics or astrology, and I only started reading my horoscope when a free local paper came to our city. Now I read the horoscope for Gemini (my sign) as well as that of Leo and Cancer (the signs of my sister and mom), more for a self-help/motivating kind of boost rather than believing the words are predicting my day.

Filed under: Mundane by jummy