By Jennifer Vanasco

I used to write a will before I traveled.

They were always capricious documents, written in longhand the night before I left, on paper torn from some notebook or other and pushed into a standard envelope labeled in capital letters: JAY’S WILL.

They were each different and depended on my mood, but usually they were filled with crazy details about exactly how to take care of my dog, which of my friends should get what books, what jewelry I wanted to pass along to my sister or back to my mother and what items of childhood I wanted secure in my brother’s hands.

And then there were the funeral arrangements. I got very specific. Not just what music I wanted played—everyone does that—but the sorts of things I wanted people to remember. In addition, I wanted to set up a scholarship for a gay student to Wellesley (in lieu of flowers…), donate the remaining money in my IRA and scatter my ashes across Long Island Sound, Wellesley’s Lake Waban and Lake Michigan.

I wrote those wills—dozens of them—because I am scared to travel.

No one knows this. (Well, until now). I travel a lot, and my friends tend to think I’m some sort of jaded road warrior.

But I am always terrified before I get on a plane. Not because of the plane trip itself—I love flying—but because there is something about leaving your normal routine that gives you the sense that anything can happen.

You can catch a dread disease. Be set upon by bandits. Be imprisoned for chewing gum or asking the wrong questions. Be kidnapped by a friendly face on the beach. Be murdered for cruising the wrong person. Be at the wrong hotel or restaurant or bar at the wrong time.

A family friend last weekend said, “I wouldn’t go where you go,” which shocked me, because I think of him as well-traveled.

But he stays in Western Europe—I try to go to edgier places, the Middle East, Central America. I bought a ticket to Jordan the day after a bombing at a nightclub a few years ago because the ticket prices dropped. I’ve been planning a trip to India for a long time. I am desperate to go to Syria and Lebanon.

Today, in six hours, I’m going to Kenya. The tourist board there is hosting a group of journalists because of the violence that has torn the country up this winter in the wake of their presidential elections. The idea is that we’ll go there, see it’s safe and write articles telling Americans and Canadians and Western Europeans that they can come back.

My next-door neighbor, when he heard where I was going, shook his head. “My best friend is Kenyan,” he said. “If I told you what his relatives were saying, you wouldn’t be going.”

I told him not to tell me.

I think Kenya is safe now or I wouldn’t be going. But do I know it’s safe? No. And the not knowing scares me.

I used to write wills but I haven’t for a while, not since September 11 reminded us that any ordinary, blue-sky Tuesday can turn tragic. We are never safe, not really. Or rather, we are all safe until we aren’t.

I used to write wills because it gave me a sense of control—I couldn’t foresee everything that would happen to me on a trip, but I could make sure my dog received the same treats each evening and my books went to loving owners.

As I get older, though, and understand better how little control we actually have, I crave it less. And I trust more.

So I don’t write wills anymore—not for each trip. (Don’t write me letters saying I should write a general will. I know I should.)

I’m still scared to travel, though.  I’m afraid that when I leave today, I won’t come back to my apartment and dog and the life that I love—or won’t come back whole.

But I won’t let myself be ruled by fear. Instead, I’m focusing on imagining the great sky of Africa, the fierce equatorial heat, the flocks of birds, the long lope of gazelles and the slow importance of elephants.

Instead of writing wills beforehand, I focus on writing about it all after, when I return.

Jennifer Vanasco is an award-winning, syndicated columnist. Email her at jennifer.vanasco@gmail.com.