One decade ago, I bought a one way plane ticket on Vanguard airlines from AUS to MCI for $65. I was 19. I had recently purchased and was wearing the warmest coat I could find and was carrying my white Stetson hat. I didn't want the folks in KC to forget that I was a Texan.
If you can do simple math you will remember that this was just months after 9/11 and security was pretty tight. I had only flown a few times before this so I wasn't exactly steeped in TSA protocol or airport procedures. My two checked bags and one carry on were packed as tight as I could get them. I was, after all, moving taking all my possessions with me on this flight save a few items (mostly shoes and the last two LOTR books [more math will tell you that LOTR Fellowship had come out recently and I had become obsessed {not much has changed in that respect}]). I was "randomly selected" to have my bags searched. For what they were searching, I couldn't tell you. Bombs I presumed. None were found, of course, but this was learned after all my jam-packed belongings were spread about all over creation (aka the table at the airport). After my things were shoved back into my bulging carry-on bag and given back to me, I took a seat in the boarding area. They had just recently implemented the rule (law?) that only ticketed passengers were allowed beyond security so I'd already said goodbye to my parents and they were on their way back to SA.
As I sat down feeling violated and lonely, I started to cry. Probably having more to do with the loneliness than the violation. This was not the first time I'd left home, but I think I knew then that it was the last time I'd leave home. I was right.
There was not much else that I was right about, sitting there staring out the window of the airport, straining to see if I could see my mom's Corolla as they left the airport parking lot. I had this plan, a dream, if you will about what was going to go down in KCMO. I think moving there was about the only thing I had planned that actually occurred.
The day I got there was in early February (the first I believe) and KC was coming off one of the worst ice storms in its history. When I arrived, I was shocked at how dead everything was. Not sure why since I had lived in Southern MO for a year before this and had seen what real winter looks like. I guess I had forgotten.
But this year was especially grim because so many tree limbs had broken off from the weight of the ice and there were piles of dead branches alongside the road in front of houses and businesses. The atmosphere matched my mood. Dreary.
I wanted to be excited, but other than just doing something different, I had little to look forward to. For one, it was friggin cold. I had no car, no job and barely a place to live. My first order of business was to find a job. Second, find a car. Third, find a long term place to live.
I can't say I ever really found much of a legitimate job the entire 4 years I lived there. But I eventually got work, then a car very shortly after and then a few months later, a place to live. The job lasted only a month or two. The car lasted 7 short months (may that green Ford Ranger "Brother Joe" RIP), but the place to live lasted nearly 3 years right up until I went on my honeymoon.
But I'm skipping ahead here. See, those few months before I found a place to live I played a constant game of yo-yoing with myself. I shared an apartment with my best friend and her brand new husband. Newlyweds. Yuck. Oh and I forgot to mention the other tenant....their Great Dane puppy Caesar. With whom I shared a room. Along with all the storage items of the couple I lived with. All my items were stored in milk crates which I kept by the day bed I slept on. Every night, without fail, Caesar would wake up having to go outside and pee. He would whine plenty loud enough for me to hear, but somehow never loud enough for his owners to hear. So I'd have to take him down three flights of stairs into the snow for him to pee. Then back upstairs where inevitably, said owner would be standing there sleepily saying, "oh you didn't have to do that." Actually, I did.
Every night that happened. Among other annoyances of dealing with a poorly trained horse-sized dog. But there were other things going on each night during those two months. I had trouble finding a job, finding a car I could afford, making friends but most importantly figuring out just why in the hell I was there. And for those two months around 3AM when I was trying to get back to sleep after Caesar's potty break, I would lay there feeling dejected and told myself that tomorrow, I was going to call my parents and ask them to buy me a one way ticket back home. I was out of money, no one liked me, my job was a joke and that dumb dog just pooped in his cage...again.
But you know what? I never did call my parents and ask for that plane ticket. I never bought one myself either. I think deep down I knew I was supposed to be there, freezing my ass off, I just couldn't see why. It would be years before I figured out why that's where I needed to be. It was of course for completely different reasons that I had thought and I am so glad. What I had planned was so lame in comparison to what happened.
It's pretty normal for your 20's to be the time of most change in your life. Mine was no different. I am drastically different now than that girl crying at the airport 10 years ago. And I like who I am now, but 10 years from now, when I am 39 I hope I am drastically different then than I am now. I hope I can look back and think about how much I've learned and grown and changed.
But I hope I never get too old to cry at the airport when life sticks another fork in the road.
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