I realized I love airports, well, love and hate them. It's a complicated relationship. I love the relaxed breath the moment after you pass through security and take a seat at your gate. I love the assurance that you've made it, you're on time. I love the pre-wrapped sandwiches and hot coffee. I even enjoy smiling at the grumpy workers. It's strange, I know, but I recognize now just how much peace I get sitting at the gate. It's my time to reflect, to watch, to inhale where I've left and exhale where I'm going. I never feel that impatient for my plane to come if it's only a couple of hours. I suppose I'm not thrilled at the thought of being in an airport for eight hours, but right now sitting in the Charles De Gaulle alone while Maggie is browsing the airport shops, I am content. I'm finally off of a sweltering, overcrowded the Metro, RER train, and airport shuttle as I was before. And even though I'm wrapped in clothes that haven't been washed more than twice over five weeks and underwear I washed in a Brussels hotel sink, I'm sad to see it end. I'm not very good at realizing where I'm going on trips, just where I am. It never truly sinks in until much too late, usually mid-sentence of someone else's words and I drift off thinking, "I'm really here." So the fact that we are on our way home hasn't truly hit me. Maybe because we aren't doing anything we haven't done to indicate the trip is over. We got up early, packed, showered, packed more, checked out of our hostel, grabbed a pastry (probably my last "Chausson Au Pomme" for a while :(), got to the airport, and are now waiting for the plane. Typical travel for us, really.
We have a connection to Dublin, then an eight hour flight, then a five hour layover in Chicago, then a flight home. Ugh. Just writing that sounds dreadful, doing it will be even more difficult. Oh well, I'm sure I'll read this paragraph later and have some "profound" thought about how quickly time moves. But it's true of course.
***
No comments:
Post a Comment