A plane to positivity

I took this picture on the last day of the last decade. 31.12.2019. I was flying home from Spain to London after spending Christmas with family. 2019 had not been a great year for me. I was struggling with a back injury that was not healing at a rate I was happy with. I had been feeling pretty negative about life and felt I was missing out on a lot including spending time with my children. I also felt a lot of guilt about how much extra my wife had to do as I was incapacitated.

With the new year and new decade approaching I had decided to take control of my life and recovery. In the taxi on the way to the airport I had decided I would leave the negativity in Spain.

I spent most of the two hours before our flight in a wheelchair or lying on a pile of coats on the floor in agony. When most of the flight had boarded the airport assistant came and collected me and my family to board also. Being pushed through an airport in a wheelchair is pretty demorilising. Everyone looks at you and you can feel their eyes judging you. All I could hear in my head was 'why is someone so young in a wheelchair. She looks ok to me'. They couldn't see the support shirt, heat packs and TENS machine under my jumper. They couldn't see the collection of tablets I had to get me through.

As I was pushed through passport check and down to the lift to the airplane I felt relief that the staring was almost over and resolute that I would own 2020.

As we exited the lift the airport assistant pushed me towards the plane and we pulled up to the side to wait to be told to advance. As I took my last look at the clear Spanish sky the beautiful scene you see in the photo was what greated me. My breath was taken!

I grabbed straight for my phone to capture the sky. I opened the native app on my iPhone 5SE and started snapping. I just had time to focus and get off about 3 shots before I was pushed to board the plane. I placed my phone back into my pocked and focused on surviving the flight.

It wasnt until the next day that I had a look at the photos. The sky was stunning with the jetway spliting the colours of the sky. I owe this view to the lower angle I had sitting in the wheelchair. I did very little post processing of the shot. I just used the auto correct in the native app to correct the colours and that was it. There really wasn't alot to the creative process for this shot. Just a beautiful sky, some luck and the motivation to take out my phone and just shoot.

This photo is really symbolic to me and I still have it on my phone. I keep it to remind me of the promise I made to myself. I am not whole yet but I am defintely stronger mentally and up for the challenges my recovery sends me.