There is a unique and comforting anonymity in flying on your own. You share a bond with the hundreds of ants milling around beside you, scurrying from terminal to terminal. You are one of a thousand and yet you are completely alone.
Flying is a world between worlds. One world is left behind in all the vividness of memories, each portion carefully selected until you have crafted the vision you want to keep with you. Another world awaits you, and whether you have been there or not, it will always be a new destination when you are on the plane.
Once you are there you have time to think, time to gaze inwardly and time to philosophize about life and your ever-changing trek through it. For me, this time revolves around goodbyes. The goodbyes that constantly leave my mouth and take something from my heart when they slip out my lips. It leaves me feeling chafed and sore, like the way my hands feel after packing, repacking, and dragging my luggage to the next destination.
This hello goodbye, this tap dance over an invisible line, it leaves scuff marks on the floor of my heart. Like velcro I hook myself back into old friendships and relationships, and with that harsh tearing noise I rip myself away again, thousands of hooks and loops screaming their disapproval. Goodbyes have never really been my thing. If I have ever told you goodbye and seemed cold, don't worry, the tears never come until I am alone in the void between worlds.
I often think of my old world and how every return makes it seem as if I had never left it. I fall straight into the embrace of my dearest friends, a sacred reunion of people I feared I would never see again, much less see together. One person is a joy, but the unity of many that had loved each together is simply beauty. And yet time dances on and the places you once knew and called home have changed without your input. Change is merciless and necessary, but with jealousy I know that my home is changing without me. For that reason I have placed my home in the hearts of those dear to me, so that whenever I am with them I am home.
So when you ask me where I am from I will say, "I don't know." If you really want to know a place, I suppose it would have to be the airplane.
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