Airport

Sometimes I have to pretend to be the courageous independent woman that I am. The airport scene of my departure was one of those moments. As soon as my parents left me at the gates to go through customs I felt a sudden urge to cry. I wasn’t sad really, just overwhelmed. I took a deep breath and reminded myself I’m going to Paris and smiled. However when I looked back at my parents waving to me and realized how much I love them and can’t picture my life without them, tears actually welled up in my eyes, though I didn’t let them go down. I love you guys :)

After going through customs and finding the wing of my take-off I sat down to do what any modern worldly traveler does: update my status on facebook. After that was done I refreshed the page to see how many notifications it generated. Ah, modern distractions.

I looked around me and saw that most people are distracting themselves with variations of reality television. I felt immensely superior. But only because I’m smart enough to save those for Laos. Nothing like watching The Bachelorette get called an ugly duckling on her own show to get rid of any feeling of home-sickness.

When I first decided to go on this adventure I actually thought I could make it, or even, that I would enjoy it more if I didn’t bring my computer. I pictured myself in a third-world country, somewhat like Rambo, cut off from the world, serene and wise but immensely fierce. “Fo sho”, I thought, (I think in ghetto) “I can do that sh** fo sho.” Travel half way around the world far away from everything I know and everyone I love and not bring any means of communication? “No biggie. It’s called a vacay yo.”

It only occurred to me later that I might miss my mommy.


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