Can we pretend that airplanes...

In the last 10 days, I've taken seven flights. I spent more hours than I want to count waiting in airports, drinking more-expensive-than-it-needs-to-be coffee, sitting on tarmacs, and fidgeting on airplanes. By Friday, the number of flights will increase to 10.

I don't often travel this much. I'm out of the habit. I've become too accustomed to working from home.

I despise travel. I really do. I'm impatient and usually unable to relax. I worry about my next connection, if I'll arrive on time, and whether I'll get to run through the Charlotte airport one more time. I worry about what happens at my home without me. In my darker moments, I wonder if I'll even be missed. What if Chris and the kids do better without me? Do they even notice my absence? (Of course, they do, and I still worry). Life moves forward whether I'm with them or not. This is hard fact that I prefer to overlook.

Life goes on, with or without me.

Yet, I find myself craving the time I spend on airplanes. Quiet and solitude capture me for the length of the flight. My mind wanders away from the pressing deadlines, the ever-growing to-do list, and the what-must-be-done to what-could-be-possible. When I travel, I tend to face myself, the good, the bad, and the ambivalent. I cannot escape who I am by pushing onto the next task, the next essay, or the next school event. The captive time of each flight leads to revelation, small and large.

I first realized this on a flight to Albuquerque after I defended my dissertation prospectus for my PhD program. My plan was delayed, and then, I faced a three-hour flight with a drugged Devon Rex in a bag. She was safely stowed under the seat in front of me. The defense didn't go as I had hoped. I was angry and disappointed. I worried over what that meant for my future and whether I actually wanted to write a dissertation. Lost in my own thoughts, I reached down to check on the cat. I thought I heard a muffled meow. I placed my hand on the mesh end of the bag, and she grabbed my finger and bit down hard. I snatched my bleeding, throbbing finger away. Red blood slid down my index finger. I pressed my Delta napkins onto the wound and had a revelation. Pain clarified my situation. My life mattered more than my academic work. My relationship with Chris, who I was traveling to see, ranked higher than my stupid defense. If I had to make a choice between academia and us, I would choose us. Later, I would choose us again and again. This is my truth. One of most important decisions of my life happened on an airplane.

Airplanes continue to be spaces of possibility and truth for me. 30,000 feet above the ground, I discover the pieces of my self trampled on by work, parenthood, and the small-but-pressing tasks of ordinary life. On airplanes, I seek a small pocket of time to dream and imagine. I also gain the necessary elevation and distance to evaluate my life at particular moments. I take deep breaths of the stale cabin air, buckle my seat belt, and try to remember what it is like to only be responsible for one human life. My burdens seem lighter in the air. Maybe, they are.

Chris firmly believes that airports and airplanes are liminal spaces where we can discard our normal trappings of self in the process of becoming one of many anonymous travelers. Our everyday lives stop at security and only to be returned to us at baggage claim. We can hope those lives wait patiently for our return; I like to think they miss us.

When I fly, I feel the disconnect between travel and ordinary time in my bones. Time moves differently. Responsibility shifts. Expectations change. I remember a younger self, so eager to travel as a sign of her importance and value in the world. Was I ever really that naive? Of course. Now, as I take one flight after another, I confront who I am versus who I pretend to be. I let go of pretense and seek transformation. The hum of the engines is the soundtrack of change.

Today as I flew from Charlotte to Chicago, I read Cheryl Strayed's Brave Enough, a collection of quotes from her previous works and interviews. Every time I pick up one of her books, I find truth, compassion, and strength. I'm learning that I am who I am because of my experiences not in spite of them. I'm learning to live in my own skin. To not shy away from hard truths. To see life as an unfurling. To realize that we are all learning to live with our truths.

As the airplane moved me from one place to the next, I learned something about me. In the quiet, I uncovered a truth waiting for me to fully see it. To acknowledge and embrace it. I realized that I can look back as a way to move forward. I just don't have to live there anymore. I never did.

See for yourself.