I took a sunrise flight from Austin to Atlanta this morning. There are better ways to start a Saturday than a 4am wake-up call and trek through airport madness, but on a scale of easy breezy to logistical hellfire, this one definitely leans towards the former.
Since I was eighteen most of the time I travel, I travel alone: the treks back and forth from Boston to Wisconsin during college; now the flights home for the holidays; the trips I take to see friends, like this weekend. It was an oddity to be on the same flight as my family a few months ago to Maui.
A side effect of living away from family and college friends and living partnerless is that travel coordination is all my own: from making sure I don’t oversleep to reading unfamiliar airport and street signs. This isn’t difficult, of course. We all manage the logistics of our own life with a passable play at adultness. I rented a car on my own for the first time and figured out how to get out of the parking structure. Very normal human thing. I’ll still take my gold star.
Traveling alone in the past has felt a little lonely to me. In college, it was a zone between worlds. My family and my fiance in one state. My friends and my burgeoning self in the other. No matter which way the plane flew I was leaving something behind.
When I was eighteen, after I parted with my boyfriend at the airport, I got catcalled getting onto a shuttle bus. The man quickly changed his tune when he saw was I was in tears and asked, stricken, if I was okay. Those goodbyes tore me up. But apparently gross sorrow is effective to combat against catcalling, so that was a win.
More often than not, I’d find myself crying on airplanes. I’d be listening to music and thinking and reflecting and then squeeze out a few tears with my head turned towards the window. I usually had on some sad song which made it hard to argue against premeditation. I have always been a bit dramatic, even when left alone.
That brand of drama, though, was reflective of the times. With nothing else to do, my mind rested in the storm. The in-between of traveling – long hours, nothing to do but get yourself place to place – was a breeding ground for some good old fashioned angst.
It occurs to me today that I haven’t cried on an airplane in a while. Not the last few times at least. I mean, I could if I wanted to. I am an easy crier and I could get worked up after a few Taylor Swift songs if I was in the mood. But I wasn’t. There’s a change in times for you.
Today I read my book for work and then listened to David Sedaris on audio. I nodded off a little and drank a 7am Diet Coke. The flight was short, less than two hours in the air, and I don’t feel particularly worked up about anything today. Even now, writing in a Starbucks and waiting for my friends’ flight to arrive. Two years ago I was waiting for a flight, journaled, and cried (gently and poetically of course) while eating disappointing airport biscuit and eggs.
(In my defense, that was the week my divorce was finalized and I was heading to my cousin’s wedding.)
I’m pointing all this out to myself so I know that the storm was just that, a storm. It passes. The blue sky never goes away.
I am looking forward to this weekend. My college best friends are coming down from Boston. We appointed Atlanta as our half-way point and are driving an hour out of the city to Red Top Mountain State Park to spend a few days hiking and hanging by the woods and lake.
We only see each other once a year in person and our lives have all stretched, and broken, and grown, and changed in the five years since graduation. Our friendship is going through that cycle too. In many ways, we know each other less now. But we hold a part of each other that no one else does. We protect those parts. The trick, I think is holding new parts too. Of letting ourselves be seen for who we are today. To let love become more layered and rooted as we grow up.
I’m trying to uncomplicate it in my mind. Going into this weekend, I certainly could have found something to cry about if I wanted. But I don’t want. It doesn’t feel part of my universe anymore. I want to feel excited and ready and known.
And I do.
With Love,
Natalie