I don't know what it is about this kind of life that makes me want to keep coming back to it over and over and over again. I mean, let's be honest here for a second. Travelling is not all it's cracked up to be. To start with, packing is exhausting, especially for someone who has been unprofessionally misdiagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder. Then there's the security checks at airports, where you have to remove essential items of clothing after having invested valuable time in putting them on. Not to mention the seemingly inappropriate (yet somehow legal) touching by odd looking strangers who claim it is their profession to search for something that is clearly not there. Or if it is, it's very well hidden.
When that's done, and everything else is running smoothly, you get on the plane and you sit, on the right, in an even-numbered seat, because that's where you feel most at ease. Thirty minutes in air and you suddenly realise that that urgent bathroom call, the same one you ignored prior to boarding in an attempt to get yourself a decent seat, is now back. But you don't want to disturb the lovely old couple who have been nothing but nice to you throughout the course of that half hour period. So you dismiss the call, again, and suppress every thought that urges you otherwise. The fact that the fresh oxygen supply is limited doesn't help make the situation any easier. But it's all good because you're almost there now.
Quietly, and with a voice of someone who just woke from an afternoon nap, the pilot announces that you shall be commencing your descent at your destination. And then you do. With your book, your music, and your passport at hand, you make your way to the exit door. You step outside into the unknown and you take your first breath of foreign air. Make it deep. Don't move. Stand still for a second. Just stand still.
Because in that moment right there, that's when you know. That's when you know that no matter how draining and wearing it is, the journey complements the destination. That's when you know that those tiny little creatures, jumping on your heart like a bunch of six-year-olds at a playground after school, are there for a reason. And they will be coming back for as long as you need them to.
For as long as they all shall live.
For as long as you both shall do.
When that's done, and everything else is running smoothly, you get on the plane and you sit, on the right, in an even-numbered seat, because that's where you feel most at ease. Thirty minutes in air and you suddenly realise that that urgent bathroom call, the same one you ignored prior to boarding in an attempt to get yourself a decent seat, is now back. But you don't want to disturb the lovely old couple who have been nothing but nice to you throughout the course of that half hour period. So you dismiss the call, again, and suppress every thought that urges you otherwise. The fact that the fresh oxygen supply is limited doesn't help make the situation any easier. But it's all good because you're almost there now.
Quietly, and with a voice of someone who just woke from an afternoon nap, the pilot announces that you shall be commencing your descent at your destination. And then you do. With your book, your music, and your passport at hand, you make your way to the exit door. You step outside into the unknown and you take your first breath of foreign air. Make it deep. Don't move. Stand still for a second. Just stand still.
Because in that moment right there, that's when you know. That's when you know that no matter how draining and wearing it is, the journey complements the destination. That's when you know that those tiny little creatures, jumping on your heart like a bunch of six-year-olds at a playground after school, are there for a reason. And they will be coming back for as long as you need them to.
For as long as they all shall live.
For as long as you both shall do.