I Am Sitting In An Airport

I am sitting in an airport. It feels just short of glorious. A lot has changed since the first real memory I have of airports. My first real memory is like a rigorous roller coaster:

It was before planes where pedestrians were weapons and everyone, boarding pass or not, could go all the way up to the gate. If you are young you might not know there was a time where this reality existed, but it did. We were all there with a mixed excitement for what was coming and a growing realization of what we were leaving behind. I was looking for my best friend who had promised to see me off. No goodbyes were final because this would be our final goodbye. She didn't show. Her parents thought, because of her grief, that it would be better if she didn't come. It stuck to my heart with irrevocable pain.

There is a picture someplace, that I don't have on me right now. My two brothers and I, along with my parents, are standing in front of the gate holding a giant map. One of us is pointing to Pennsylvania, where we were leaving, one to Ecuador, where we were heading to school, and one to Uruguay, where my parents were moving. My face is slightly blotchy and twisted into disdain.

Some place between that gate and being seated inside the plane my emotions shifted. I was buckled in, staring out the window, telling my mother that I didn't remember the last time we flew. I was 3 or 4 years old the last time and at the age of 10 it was a lifetime ago. I relive this moment every flight. I sat and looked out the window, my forehead against the double paned glass. My heart leaped to my throat as we gained speed and lifted off the ground. I watched the world sink below me, everything transforming into perfect toy replicas of their life sized selves. The world fell away and took with it all the problems that were sitting in that airport, in that place.

I am sitting in an airport. It feels just short of glorious. I am 25 years old and I have averaged around four flights a year since that first time back. I can pack a carry-on to hold 100 lbs if I need to. I have a system. I know the flow of an airport. I know that it pays to dress nicely and speak nicely to everyone in transit because you don't know what they are leaving behind. This trip might be costing them much more than money. I've learned that everyone around you has a story. I once met an older man who gave me Spanish literature suggestions. A young man who grew up in Dubai as a TCK and couldn't believe his luck on meeting another TCK. A woman whose sister had cancer. A man who was struggling with how much freedom to give his teenage daughter.

I am going to visit a dorm sister, one of my best friends. We have the kind of friendship that leads to hours of talking at the very deepest levels over coffee and laughing to tears over hardships and hilarious moments of the past. I know that soon I will be watching my world here drop below the clouds and I will go to another one. It holds familiar and unknown. And sitting here in the airport I get the feeling that this concept, this up and down, this missing my husband but excitement to see my friend, this stepping out of my life into another, this is what I am made for. This is what I know. This is what I do.

I am a wanderer, but I am not lost.

What do you feel when you are in an airport?