Airports are usually good places to write. They’re full of stories. The happy vacationers, from sun tanned to sun burnt, strolling to their gate with giant straw hats that read something non-sensical like “happy sunshine”. There’s the business men with their neatly packed (never unpacked only re-packed) slim titanium suitcases, mumbling something about a quarterly forecast into only one of their air pods, and then, there’s me. Or people like me, because I do believe I’m not alone and we make up a whole category. We’re likely wearing flip flops or sneakers, make up is optional, we know how to pack because we’ve done it a lot in our lifetime, yet still don’t love it. We’re not on a business trip, so we’re not quite that mechanical about our luggage and its content. But we’re familiar with airports, may have spent a night here or two, been drunk here before or ran across hallways to closed gates. We know that airports are all about beginnings, and endings. We still don’t fully understand how it’s possible that a giant metal bird can just take off into the air, and it always comes with a paper thin layer of fear that this could be the last time you do. You simultaneously stare at and ignore the flight attendant in front of you doing the dance with the seatbelt. We don’t believe this flight in particular is going to crash but it crosses our mind, and yet, we manage to fall asleep and not be phased by turbulence. We stroll through the gates trying to do the impossible equation of figuring out the perfect moment to get food, coffee, water and when to use the bathroom for the “last” time. We know it’s always a new beginning. Even if it’s a flight back home. Because we begin anew, with the experiences we’ve gained, the people we’ve met, the changed versions of ourselves we’ve become.
And here, right now, this is me. At the airport in Ibiza after a trip that changed me and reminded me of what is still the same. A trip that reminded me of my wounds and my truths and those of others, and of the fact that almost everything about them is the same for all of us. That we find humanity in every little thing and that we can’t run away, not even to the beach. Maybe I tried, just a little bit. To run away that is. And now I am dragging my carry on over the big white tiles trying to find a seat so I can wait for my delayed flight to board and sip my iced oat latte. I kick a small round thing away from me as I lazily step-slide my flip flops across the floor. For a second I think it’s a penny but realize it’s actually just a big flat bread crumb as it comes to a halt a couple of meters in front of me. Those are the things you notice when you’re temporarily trapped in the zone after security but before seat 24A. That and half empty beer glasses sitting in front of bright red foreheads, or glitter purses with chihuahuas peeking out of them. It’s like life takes on a different dimension and you realize that maybe, you didn’t just really need a break and a cocktail, you also tried to escape.
I think I did. I think I may have hoped that I could just dip out of my life for 7 nights and 8 days and come back with new puzzle pieces that would fit exactly into what was missing. Shocker, I did not. I did, take a few breaths and read a romance novel on a lounge chair with the waves crashing in front of me and toddlers screaming “mommy look” behind me. I did, hug an old friend who led me to a hidden beach where we stripped down and covered our bodies in natural clay and dipped naked in the sea to wash it all off. I also wrote you a postcard every single day because I needed to be alone but not talking to you killed me. So at gate 15, I realized that I may have left with a gaping hole in my heart and that that hole was still there, and I still wanted you to fix it. But if I kept asking you to we would crash and burn and the happy ending from page 339 would forever stay on paper. I knew better than this. I know better than this. I know that anything you seek outside of yourself will inevitably, inevitably hit you in the face and you’ll end up crying on the bathroom floor and sitting it out in therapy (which thank god for therapy).
So I board the plane. Knowing my life may have taken me for another spin down a road I have for damn sure traveled before. AND THAT’S OKAY. In fact it’s great, because this time I recognized it way sooner than the 21-year old who woke up next to some guy in a hotel room she could have never afforded. Yes, maybe part of me ran away, or tried to. Another part of me stood up for herself, took herself on a vacation that she deserved, booked and paid for and that she knew her soul needed. And that same part knows, even if planes do round trips and it feels like life does too sometimes, it never goes in circles. I am exactly where I need to be with all my truths and all my wounds, right here on seat 7C.
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