Adventures Seven Months Past (Part 1)

All through the House

I get nervous on any plane trip. Longer trips across a vast ocean of water make me borderline frantic. It is not so much the fear of crashing and dying some sudden, horrible death. Well there is that, but it is more than that. I fear the thought of maybe getting stuck somewhere and not knowing anybody.

I am leaving my sweet, humble existence in Seattle for a reunion with family across the Pacific in the country of my birth, The Philippines. The trip is a simple one. I have one leg from Seattle to Honolulu with a quick overnight stay. The next morning, I make another one over the International Dateline into the heart of the beast that is Manila.

I make this trip routinely but it still leaves me anxious the night before. I check that I packed my passport over and over. Of course, it is still in the same place where I left it five minutes ago in my Swiss Army backpack. At first, I feel that I didn’t bring enough clothes, and then, it feels like I am bringing too much. I try to keep is simple. One suitcase and one carry-on. I don’t need much. Ok, now I feels like it isn’t enough.

I look at my mess of a room and wonder if I am forgetting anything. Passport is, again, in the same place. The iPhone is charging and my computer is converting movies to be played on the plane. I bring two books: the first part of the His Dark Materials trilogy, The Golden Compass (which I have read several times) and Stephen King’s On Writing (which I’m in the middle of). Reading material - check. Movies for the plane - check. I know I’ll forget my toothbrush but thats ok. There has got to be a place somewhere that I can buy one right? Anxiety strikes a chord, and now I’m fretting over the damn toothbrush. I’ll clear my mind with some videogames.

Last year, while waiting for my flight to Manila, I stayed up through the night playing games. It gave my overactive mind something to do that didn’t involve me freaking out.

After a few hours, I fall asleep...after checking my passport one more time and then making sure the alarm clock was set...twice.

A Small Hiccup on the Way

The blaring of the alarm pulls me from a comforting sleep. I slowly rise. I am ahead of schedule. I figured that I’d involuntarily sleep in for about thirty minutes. Surprising myself, a quick shower is in order. A final check for everything is the last thing that I do. I call a taxi and wait in anticipation for my ride. My eyes are lazy with exhaustion. This is going to be a long day already.

The cab pulls up. I whisper, “Here we go”, to no one in particular. A small laugh rumbles in the back of my brain. God, I sure am an over-dramatic fool. The cab driver doesn’t really acknowledge my presence, but I remind myself that its five o’clock in the morning for him too. “Sea-Tac airport, please”, I mutter through a haze of anticipation and weird regret. It is funny. I always feel a tinge of regret whenever I set off for the airport. There is a small, but noticeable sense of abandonment when I leave. I am thinking too much again.

Yeah, the passport is still there, man.

Cab rides are strange. I have no idea who this guy is and the moments pass uneasily. The iPhone is used to assuage any social awkwardness. Of course, I start thinking about the battery life. This has to last me the 6-plus hours to Honolulu because I have to call my uncle to pick me up. I disregard any notions of a world without a cell phone and check Facebook again. I need some sort of acknowledgement that I am in fact leaving for the airport. It is an exercise in narcissism. I want people to miss me or anticipate my arrival.

Wait. Where is my phone charger?

Fuck. Where is it?

Yeah, my passport is still here, asshole.

I sigh. “Hey, could you turn around? I forgot my stupid phone charger.”

The cabbie replies, “Oh, you’ll need that on your trip.”

The reply left me remarkably confused. Without missing a beat, my inner voice is telling me that this cab drive is now going to take twice as long and cost twice as much. Good thing I woke up early, I assure myself.

Back at the house, I find the charger exactly where I left it last: connected to the computer. It is almost a surprise. I go outside and get back into the cab.

“Sea-Tac airport, please.”

The Airport of Kinda Funny Coincidences. But Not Really.

I like to get to SeaTac early. Once there was a frightful moment; I got to there with under an hour to check-in, get through the security line, and somehow run to the gate. I was the very last person to board the plane and no sooner had I sat down did the plane depart from the gate. And of course there was the half-disastrous Thanksgiving of ‘08, when I arrived with fifteen minutes to spare, missed my flight, and had to run the length of the airport twice to try and get on a flight to Los Angeles. Nowadays, I don’t mind waiting three or more hours for some stupid flight.

The security line is non-existent today, and I get through with about four hours to spare before my flight. Ok, four hours might be a tad long to wait for a flight. I think I might be a secret neurotic. This can’t be good.

I find a restaurant in front of my gate on the slight chance that the airplane decides to leave without me. I have a sublimely mediocre omelette, but it is better than I expected. Three cups of coffee, twenty-three refreshes of Facebook, two passport checks, a cursory glance at today’s news (the world is still fucked) later, the flight starts to board. I hit the restroom and hangout with the growing crowd awaiting their aluminum vessel. I scan the fellow passengers that I am about to share 6 hours in a cramped tube. It is the usual mix of families struggling keeping their kids under wraps, the too cute couple snuggled in a warm blanket, the other couple that look like they are on the verge of never speaking to each other again, the one family already in the shorts and Hawaiian shirts, and her.

Oh God, why.

I haven’t seen her in almost a decade and she looks the same from college. Maybe a little extra weight, but considering my own lack of fitness, it looks like the years have been kind. I can’t see her face. It has to be her. My astonishment is replaced by an enveloping anger, slowed to a boil, served with a hint of spite.

We broke up about eight years ago. It was a mixed of the usual trust issues, complacency, and the fact that I probably never forgave her for breaking my heart the first time. The last two years of the relationship felt like thirty. I dreamed of ways to leave, but a fear of being alone made me stay. I don’t know how she really felt because I was so wrapped up in myself that I could hardly be bothered. I even openly tried dating another woman behind her back in the last few months of the ill-fated relationship. I know, I was twenty-one and immature, and probably in some Freudian-sense it was some revenge ploy two years in the making. Remarkably, the break up was messy and stupid. Looking back at it, I realize what a pathetic person I was. Afterwards, those pangs of fear and doubt crept back into me, and I lamented how I screwed up what seemed like a good thing. It is only years after this that I acknowledged that those three years were largely poisonous and self-destructive. I am in a more mature place.

Then, I quickly exited to the nearest restroom and updated my Facebook status my disposition.

I caught a glance of myself in the mirror washing up. I laughed and think to myself that I should write about this someday.