Story time!

Hello again! We're going to get this blog started back up.

So besides doing my paper route while beginning home, I've been doing yard work, babysitting, weeding, mowing, all sorts of stuff to raise money for México. I could never thank the people who have given me work enough. I really didn't know how I was going to afford this study aboard but with their help, I'M GOING! I'm starting to get nervous and a little bit anxious about going, but most of all I don't want to leave my family and Macomb. These past two months have flown by literally. There just never seems to be enough time. I have trouble with endings and goodbyes. Some things are so dear to me I never want them to end. I can't. 

Last semester I took an honors freshman writing class. One of the assignments was to write a narrative about anything. I wanted to share what I wrote. {Just to be clear, this is not the airport story I mentioned yesterday. This is another airport story. Now you can see why I’m nervous about flying in two weeks.} It kind of deals with my struggles with endings. Hopefully it will make you laugh and you'll enjoy it.

Always, Always, Always

            “Excuse me, miss? Would you mind switching seats with me?”

            On January 3rd, 2012 at 1:00 in the afternoon I was ready to leave my home state of Illinois and head back to BYU. I had spent the past two weeks with my family in Macomb, celebrating Christmas and the New Year, after being separated from them for five months,  but then I was about to embark on a journey across the United States. All. Day. Long.

 First, the Peoria Illinois International Airport. In my opinion there was nothing international about it. With a grand total of about five gates, I was able to see one end of the small building from the other. After I checked in my baggage and went through security, I stood right in the center of those five gates.  I glanced at the clock and sighed. Why did Dad always insist that I be so early for my flights? More importantly, why did I have to leave my family so soon? Hugging them goodbye was so painful, especially my youngest brother Benjamin. Last semester on his twelfth birthday when I called him, he had told me, crying, that when he blew out the candles on his cake he had wished for me to come home. Stupid BYU and their two week vacation. I felt so alone and so upset. I walked over to the tiny concession bar and bought the only thing that would help me contain all my emotions: a Nestle king-size triple chocolate ice cream cone.

            At 3:07 PM we finally started boarding the miniscule plane. Destination: Detroit, Michigan. What sense did it make to go east so I can go west? Why did I always have to go the wrong way before the right way? I sat down, not realizing I had sat in the wrong place, just a row behind my assigned seat, but as I glanced around the tiny cabin, I saw the label of the seats across from me. I quickly jumped up and prepared to struggle against the moving crowd that was still boarding. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if I didn’t have a fifteen-pound backpack and another bag stuffed with Christmas presents. You know, on any other plane, it wouldn’t have mattered. On any other plane, there would have been space! Then the woman, the one whose seat I had accidentally stolen, saw me. She was so rude! I really didn’t mean to take her storage space or step on her foot or hit that one person in the face with my giant backpack. But still she scolded me for not looking at my ticket correctly, then pushed my extra bag a seat up and replaced it with her own bag, making everything spill out from mine. The flight attendant announced “Please take your seats so we may begin our departure” at least three times before I situated myself. She walked down the aisle afterwards, checking if all our baggage was safely stowed away. I’m pretty sure she hated me for messing up what could have been a quick and clean boarding. Finally we headed for the sky. At least I got a window seat, even if everything else had been a disaster. From 6, 000 feet in the air, the corn fields transformed from a gross brown into winter wonderlands as we left Illinois and headed up north. North-ish.

            6:05 PM-landing time for my flight from Peoria. 6:20 PM-boarding time for my 120-person flight straight to Salt Lake City. Man, the airport in Detroit was no Peoria, let me tell you! Who ever invented those moving sidewalks was a genius. I used to think they were really dumb; an excuse for lazy business men not to walk, thus allowing them to talk on their BlackBerrys without distractions. I ran from one side of the airport to the other, arriving at my gate right at 6:18 PM; I’m that good. Thank goodness I was the back of the plane! It took at least another twenty minutes until they boarded my zone. There were so many people on my flight. So many Mormons! I swear I heard the words “mission” and “temple” at least three times each as I sat down. It was definitely nothing like the Peoria airport. I had suddenly had a strong desire for them all to know I was Mormon too. I knew I should have worn my BYU “Rise Up” t-shirt.

            Five minutes later, they called Zone 4 for boarding. I sprang up and threw that elephant of a backpack over my shoulder so I could be one of the first ones boarded. I found my seat (window seat of course), and upon seeing how much leg room there was, I had said a little prayer of thanks in my head. After stuffing the elephant into the overhead compartment, I sat down and scanned the people I would be flying with. As all the seats filled in, no one joined me in my row of three. I thought, “Maybe I’ll get all three seats to myself! Oh wait, they said this was a full flight.” Darn it.

            “Excuse me, miss?” I turned my head to see if “miss” was actually me. A man was looking back at me, with a baby on his hip, and a wife behind him holding the hands of two very sleepy-looking children. “Would you mind switching seats with me?” Even though I didn’t want to, I knew I would be impolite to refuse him. Immediately I responded with a smile and a yes, making the man’s wife sigh with relief. He then handed me his ticket and as I looked for the seat assignment, he added, “It’s for first class.” I thought, “Did I hear him wrong? First class?! First class is for rich people! I’m not rich!” I sat there stunned, and he laughed, “You’d better get up there!” I told myself to snap out of it. Quickly, I grabbed my bags, afraid that I might wake up from a dream, and thanked the couple at least fifteen times before running to the front to the plane. Right behind the captain’s cabin. My new seat: 1B.

“You know, life really isn’t that bad,” I thought and for some reason, I couldn’t stop grinning. I looked at the people around me, wondering why they didn’t seem as happy as me. The old man reading The New York Times. The woman and her sleeping daughters. The couple on their laptops. Then I realized that first class was their reality, even if it wasn’t mine. As I sat there, being pampered like I never have before, it dawned on me that this was a tender mercy from God. He always knew what I was going through, no matter how alone I felt, no matter how upset I was. And I as I thought that, a feeling spread through my entire body. Not one I can describe, but it stayed with me the entire flight. I realized that yes, my day had been somewhat horrible, but it was only one day out of my entire life. I had so many reasons to be happy and grateful. So I said a big prayer of thanks; thanks for the time I got to spend with my family, thanks for the flight attendants, thanks for BYU, thanks for a good strong backpack, and especially thanks for being alive.

After we landed and the dream was over, I still felt an indescribable feeling as I navigated one last airport. I didn’t mind waiting for my baggage as the carousels when around and around; it was actually somewhat soothing as I thought over all that had happened to me that day. I looked up and suddenly made eye contact with a man with a sleeping baby over his shoulder, his wife sitting behind him with two sleeping children. We exchanged a smile right as the baggage from our flight started shooting out onto the carousel. And then he looked away, anxious to grab his family’s suitcases. I found my own and walked out of that airport, ready to start a new day, a new semester, and a new chapter of my life.

Cheers!