Something is wrong. Well, lots of things are wrong, or at least lots of things have gone wrong today. First, there was the moment this morning, shortly after waking, when I realised that my flight was scheduled to leave five hours earlier than I remembered; all the carefully laid and lazy plans for the day had to be hastily replaced with the bare bones activity that would get me to my flight on time. Unnecessary things, such as goodbye hugs, that last minute bag of West Coast coffee, and eating, were laid aside, replaced by a hasty shower, stuffing my strewn-about belongings into a bag, and a mad dash through traffic to the airport. Thankfully, I was there with over an hour and a half before scheduled departure, though this was owing far more to my friend’s deft driving abilities than to any effort I had made. I threw one pack on my back, one on my front, the third over my shoulder, grabbed my sleeping bag, and headed to the check in counter. Where I stood in the same place, behind 70 people, for twenty minutes. We were all getting restless, some people had flights that were supposed to leave 35 minutes before mine, and we really hadn’t moved since we had gotten in line. Someone behind me sent their school aged child ducking through the ropes to the front to see what was going on. He reported back that there were indeed a lot of people there, but only in front of the counter. Behind the counter were two by now very frazzled airline employees, running back and forth to 12 different “self check in” kiosks, helping translate the screens and charging people for excess baggage and rescheduling people who had been bumped off of a previous flight that day. We continued to wait patiently (well, somewhat patiently), until finally I made it to the front with 35 minutes before my scheduled departure. I threw my bag on the belt and headed for security, which thankfully was staffed enough for five lines. Although of course the gentleman in front of me waited until the last moment, the friendly TSA employee already waving at him to walk through the detector, to decide to empty his pockets into a bin. He had cargo pants on and an ex officio style travel shirt with the “special hidden pockets.” I banged my head against the wall for the two minutes it took him to find, unzip and unbutton, and finally empty each of the thirty-seven pockets he had somehow managed to fit into his ensemble that day. I got stuck behind a lovely yet strangely leisurely couple – I say strangely because I knew from the check in line that they were on my flight, the one that was scheduled to leave in approximately 17 minutes – on the way from security to the escalator, down the escalator, on the walkway to the next escalator, down that escalator, until I was finally able to pass them just in time to see the doors to the inter-terminal train closing. Well, perhaps it was good to get a bit of a breather. Finally at the airside, I run to the gate, the agent urging me on so that he can shut the doors. Thank god! I made it! Leaning against the side of the jetway while a couple of dads struggle to fold strollers while the respecitve moms attempt in vain to comfort their inconsolable infants, I finally relax knowing that at least they can’t turn me away. I’ve made it on the jetway, they have to let me on the flight. In relaxing, I also remember that I had eaten two slices of toast and a cup of coffee some hours ago for breakfast, there is no snack service on this flight, I will be arriving in my second of four (four!) airports on my journey after midnight, where I will hopefully nap until six am, when I will hope to not miss my alarm. Only then will I be able to eat again, when hopefully some cafe will again be open for the early morning commuters. As I reach my seat in the back of the plane, having made it past rows of screaming children and what looks to be an entire class of middle school preteens who are eagerly and loudly recounting the adventures of their recent trip, I am already thinking ahead to what drink I could order that might possibly be the most filling and sustaining. That drink turned out to be pink grapefruit juice, which happily is doing it’s job to the best of it’s abilities right now. So, I settled in for my four hour flight, secure in the knowledge that at least I had some good articles to read that I had copied onto my laptop the night before from Arts and Letters Daily, plus an almost brand new book of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday WIll Shortz crosswords.
And that brings us to right now. I realised a few minutes ago that something was different about this trip, that I was feeling something I hadn’t felt in a long time. Namely, travel stress. I can’t remember the last time I traveled that it was this stressful, and for purely logistical reasons as opposed to the emotional stress I’m usually feeling as I’m leaving a home or my family or a love, moving on to an unknown life or, sometimes almost worse, to a familiar one. But this is just a trip, not a move. I’m coming back from a fortnight’s holiday. There is no stress in my life right now. But darn it if this flight has not been incredibly stressful so far. And it’s not just the unhappy little ones in quadraphonic sound, or the constant turbulence with the air stewards’ frequent entreaties that we just please, for our own safety, please stay in our seats with our seat belts fastened, or the thought of spending a cold night on a hard and dirty floor in Detroit and not being able to take a proper nap or shower until I finally arrive home at two in the afternoon tomorrow. These things are all unpleasant in singularity, but certainly never enough to make a trip unpleasant.
And I think that’s why I’m so dismayed at how stressed out and unhappy I am. The little things that invariably happen when traveling are okay with me. They roll off my back. I chuckle quiely to myself, put on my headphones, dive into a Wharton novel, doze a little, and arrive refreshed, renewed, and energised, ready to engage a new city or catch up with friends late into the night over a glass of red. But today there has been an harmonic convergence of stressful travel experiences, all coalescing into one spot and conspiring to shake my sang froid. Why does it get under my skin today? Was the cargo panted man the proverbial straw? Was it that I realised how closely I came to wasting hundreds of dollars through my own carelessness in double checking my schedule? Or is it, god forbid, that I’m simply getting too old for this shit, that I’ve passed the age where I can enjoy second-class travel because it gets me to my destination with more cash, thus extending my holiday for months while I sleep in tents and on until-recently-strangers’ couches? Am I, in my old age, now resigned to traveling “in comfort,” working long hours at my corporate job to support my plush lifestyle and lavish week long holiday each year in the style to which I am accustomed?
This is a depressing thought indeed, especially two weeks before I’m scheduled to move to a quasi developed country, one where supermarkets and hot water are expensive luxuries. So now that I’ve done complaining about this awful trip, I’m going to decide that what it really is is a blessing. How wonderful to have so many unpleasant experiences when one is flying from Seattle to Tampa with no schedule, no responsibilities, and very little chance of actual physical danger such as one might encounter when traveling in less stable countries. Now I’ve stocked up on inconveniences for a good long time, and I’ll look forward to the relative ease and almost magical simplicity of my coming flights, buses, trains, and hostels. Mexico, here I come!
