Airports

What is it about airports that I find to be so peaceful? Because when you think about it, the airport could be seen as one of the loneliest places.

Is it that I’ve spent so many of my younger years travelling with my family that I feel that child-like comfort and excitement when visiting the airport? Or is it the many life-changing trips that I’ve made on my own overseas that make me think of good times associated with this place? Whatever it is, I adore it.

Don’t get me wrong I’ve had many sad moments within these airport walls too. I’ve shed more than a few tears before hopping a flight and leaving behind a world that I know so well.

I hate leaving, not to mention being left and yet it is strange how liberating it can be.

It’s like suddenly, off I am and mid flight I always realise I’m half way between my two worlds. Between the places and faces that mean most to me in my life. What is to be made of these quiet moments of dancing thought?

I’ve got loved ones spread all over the world now, so I guess you could say there’s always somewhere to run should I require it. But away from land… up in the air, it’s usually just me. Which in everyday life doesn’t happen all that often and to be honest, never really has.

Perhaps it is up high, in these moments that I should feel truly at home or at peace? Not at the airport but in fact all those thousands of miles up in the air, hovering somewhere over a far-off land. Or maybe this is the time I should feel most alone? It’s always one extreme or the other with me and somehow, I am never fully convinced either way.

Being alone is one of my greatest fears. I have always been completely terrified of it. Scared of having no one to turn to and no place to run. I’ve been afraid of not having my life mapped out to ensure 100 percent comfort of commitment in every sense. This still frightens me, more than almost anything else. As I grow older, I hope to come to terms with this fear and face it in a more adult-like manner, rather than hopping a plane and leaving life in the habitual ritual I’ve created for myself.

Up there though, I lose all control and am forced to face those fears head on, completely alone. Up there… it’s just me, and the sky. Circling above the big bad world that awaits beneath. I hope to learn to how to embrace this level of freedom with my feet planted firmly on ground someday. For the moment though, the airport is my escape and the plane, my partner in crime.

Maybe this is why I’m so comforted by flying. Perhaps this is the one time in life when I am truly alone, left with nothing but my own thoughts and am forced to find a confidence I do not possess daily.

We’re always running out of time in our everyday lives, but in the air, it feels as though time does not exist. There’s nothing more precious than time if you use it correctly, so maybe this is my time to make the most of what it is my head is trying to tell me.

This morning as this ancient looking plane took off high into the air, I looked out the window and noticed a rainbow. Sometimes you ask for a sign and sometimes, although rarely, the world actually listens and gives you it.

I have had in the past and will continue to have life-altering experiences both in the air and on land, with people I love dearly. These adventures will always begin here… in an airport just like this one. In this brightly lit, bustling and timeless construction that opens its doors to the world every, single day. The nice thing about the airport is not knowing, who you may meet, why you meet them or when it’s going to happen. The world is smaller here, yet holds greater opportunity without the boundary of time.

If you take a moment and look around, there are a thousand stories waiting to be told. Some may be sad, some may be happy and some may be the stories told by children beaming with excitement regardless of the ungodly hour, which in that moment they stand. Perhaps they are stories that have become routine in someone’s life or maybe they are completely new. Perhaps though, the story is only half written, a little like my own and the transition is just another stop on the map of life. A quick touch down, check-in or stop-over before its time for the next chapter to begin.

Maybe some stories don’t know exactly where their journey will take them, but a plane with a direct route is a place to start. Or if nothing else, maybe it’s a place to sit in limbo while your brain scurries to figure it all out. A time waster, a manipulator of time, a spot where it can be twisted to suit the individual.

Sometimes I wonder if the many people flooding these halls think like me, or if they’re all too busy thinking about their own destinations.

It’s not that I don’t, because I too think of my destination… but in a different way. I think of my final destination, the place where my soul finds exactly what it’s always been looking for. There to me, is where I hope to find. I may still be far away from this place but the adventures in between are enough to keep me occupied for now.

There’s something nice about imagining a life like this, a different life. A different reason to fly. A different person waiting for you at the other end, with open arms and a smile because they know you’re everything they’ve been missing. Yes, there’s certainly something nice about airports and the unpredictable possibilities they can hold. But most of all, the life and experiences they are capable of bringing into your life.

As I said, there’s a certain peace I find here… and one day I believe I will get on one of those planes and finally know exactly where I am going… and not only that, but be one hundred percent content with my mid-air, alone moments of clarity.

I often think of a particular line from a favourite song of mine… that for whatever reason has always struck a chord with me and I’m left with the words ringing like a bell in my head.

“Airports see it all the time when someone’s last goodbye blends in with someone’s sigh, because someone’s coming home, in hand a single rose and that’s the way this wheel keeps working now.”

And isn’t this just the truth?