the more things change...

…the more they sometimes actually really change.

My view of airports and airtime has shifted dramatically in the last 6 months.  It used to be that going to the airport was something I planned my entire day (or week) around.  Like, I have to go to the airport today for a flight, so I better make sure I don’t leave any dishes in the sink.  Or, I have to fly on Wednesday, so I better get a car wash tomorrow.  Or, I’m flying today, so I should really buy a pair of designer sunglasses at the airport.  I know, it doesn’t make any sense, but we do it.  Or, I used to do it, anyway. [OK, fine, in full disclosure, I may have purchased a pair of designer sunglasses at the airport yesterday on my way to Jacksonville.  An awesome, yet unnecessary, impulse buy.  I’ll also be honest and admit that the thought crossed my mind: If the plane goes down, this will have been a total waste of money.]  But for the most part, these thoughts rarely occur to me anymore.

Maybe it’s that, for the general population, flying is still a novelty, and for many, a nerve-inducing novelty.  I’m not the only person I know who thinks the more I fly, the less scary, the less out-of-the-ordinary, the less… justifying? it becomes.  All of a sudden, flying just became a part of the day-to-day, and 8 hours spent on two planes and in three airports (and that’s with everything being on schedule) trying to get home after a one day trip hardly seems like that big of a deal.  It’s an interesting paradigm shift for me. 

I spent a year living in Madrid and a summer living in Argentina.  During those times, I had the incredible opportunity to travel.  At the time I was doing it, I knew it was an incredible opportunity, but I didn’t, for one minute, think it might be my only opportunity to travel like that.  And, for the record, I’m beginning to resent my own lack of realistic-ness (realism?).  I often found it ironic that I had seen more of other continents than I had my own - traveled more in other countries than I had my own.  It feels like I’m chipping away at that dichotomy now week-by-week.  For better or worse.

What never ceases to amaze me in my travels… is mankind.  The human race is truly unbelievable.  And I don’t mean this in an awe-inspired “wow, we’ve really done some amazing things [insert 'electricity, space travel and the iPhone' here] while on this planet” kind of way.  I mean that in a “sometimes I’m surprised at the failure of Darwinism” kind of way.  In other words, the human race is not unbelievable, it’s un-be-LIEV-able.  Like the woman at the Jacksonville airport, screaming at her two sons (who were running AMUCK) while also screaming into the phone at her husband (ex-husband? boyfriend? parole officer? whatever.) about how she really, REALLY needed a [explicative] cigarette, but “they’re gunna make her [explicative] go through security again to have one.”  Now, I don’t have a problem with the F-bomb, per se.  I just had a problem with that woman.  Seriously lady… get a handle on your life.

Or what about the man de-boarding the plane ahead of me, who realized that the one roll-aboard left in the overhead compartment was not his?  He pushed me, with both hands, and proceeded to get in the face of the flight attendant standing behind me and scream at her like the missing bag was not only her fault, but also contained the life-saving serum to cure his inoperable, flesh-eating disease.  It was ridiculous.  After hearing a few F-bombs from him and a couple of “sir, please calm down’s” from the flight attendant, I got off the plane and entered the jetway to see a gentle-looking woman holding a similar-looking bag, patiently waiting to clear up this mess.  Guess what.  She accidentally grabbed the wrong bag as she got off the plane.  Calm the F down… sir.

And don’t even get me started about the guy sitting next to us at O’Brien’s eating (slurping, slopping, licking, picking) his buffalo wings.  Or the woman pretending not to hear her (way too old for this) child screaming “MOOOOOMMMMMYYYY” incessantly at the top of his lungs.  Or the kid sitting in the aisle seat of our row on a virtually empty plane who absolutely refused to move to his own row. 

I met some of the coolest people in the world (literally) while living and traveling abroad.  Mankind continually surprised me – in a beautiful way.  Traveling within my own country, however, has shocked and awed me in a significantly less desirable way.

 

I started out this blog post going in a very different direction.  I actually intended to write about how surprised I am at the way travel doesn’t “affect me” like it used to.  However, what started out with good intentions has clearly turned into a rant… which convinces me that perhaps traveling is taking its toll.  At least for today.  I’m exhausted and irritable.  Can you tell?  Don’t interrupt me when I’m asking a rhetorical question.