I have a strange relationship with airports filled with past worries, present wonders, and future hope.
I'm currently in the middle of a long travel day through 3 different airports. I don't fly as much as I used to and it's significantly down from my time in basketball, but I have been to a decent amount of airports in my lifetime and every time I'm in one I feel almost every emotion for the duration of my travel.
I appreciate traveling alone as I can go at my own pace, people watch, and deal with my anxieties in quiet without burdening other people who don't deserve them. I'm currently spending 5 hours in the Fort Lauderdale Airport on a layover so I thought I'd talk about my anxieties, wonders, and the relationship I have with traveling.
My busiest travel year was also the year I was responsible for 25+ travelers on around 4 flights every other week for months out of the year while working in basketball. I remember liking airports, hotels, and traveling prior to that. That year changed my outlook on traveling in a drastic, drastic way. I spent most of my nights before we would fly lying awake terrified for the next day to come and I would spend my time in the air on the flight wishing the flight would never land. Airports have haunted me ever since. Flying alone is easier because I am only accountable to myself. Still, there is no stopping that giant pit in my stomach every time I step into one.
I'm writing this while I sit and wait at the poorly lit Fort Lauderdale Airport in a large common area surrounded by windows in the form of glass walls. The first part of the layover was a breeze because the sun was still up and the south Florida sun can never disappoint in the middle of January. The issue that I am dealing with now is that the sun has disappeared behind a building for the night and I won't see it again for the remainder of time I'm in this place. It's now the warm glow of the sun just setting that will quickly turn to darkness. That glow just after the sun sets haunts me in the way the airport does, so the combination of dealing with both right now is not ideal in any way shape or form. The somber glow of this glass-filled room in the airport I sit alone at is a reminder that the day is coming to a close, my trip is over, and I am alone in an airport I don't want to be in.
For whatever reason, while I am in the airport my music taste changes from songs I would typically listen to. I think it is just to fit my mood as I walk with my head down through a heavily populated building where no one knows who I am. That year I spent being terrified of airports while in basketball, my go-to song was "everything i wanted" by Billie Eilish because that's truly how I felt during that time. This song is still played multiple times while I walk through the airport and is always the song playing as the plane takes off. It brings me some sense of comfort in a way that I'll never understand. Taking myself back to days when I felt the worst isn't something I try to do and that's exactly what that song does to me. But without hesitation since then and moving forward that song will always be in my ears while I travel.
Daytime flights make me want the comfort of the aisle seat because I don't need to look out the window into the sun. Nighttime flights are a different story. Nighttime flights make me want the window seat because when it's dark and all you can see are the lights coming from the cities below you, you feel so insignificant. All of your problems seem so minuscule. Those people down there have no idea who I am, what my issues are, and what I struggle with on a daily basis. Those lights 30,000 feet below me on nights traveling that year were my saving grace. They used to ease my anxiety for a brief second, and with how badly I normally felt, a brief second of relief cannot be understated, undervalued, or overlooked. The lights as we descended into El Paso, Texas one night around midnight will always be engraved into my mind simply because of how much anxiety I had and how for the 20-minute descent those lights made my mind completely shut off from any bad thoughts, or any thoughts at all. It's a brief and fresh reminder to not take this stuff so seriously. Easier said than done.
Being in the air at night or in an airport filled with millions of people I'll never see again allow me to wonder. I wonder what the guy's life looks like when he gets home after traveling in a suit all day. I wonder if the girl walking through the airport looking like the main character in a movie really lives her life as the main character or if this is just her practicing in front of people she doesn't know, to take back to her real life in front of the people she does when she has built up enough confidence to do so. I wonder if that family has a house in the neighborhood or if they live out on a couple acres in a white and black style farmhouse. I wonder if anyone feels that strange feeling of sadness like I do while in the airport alone. I wonder if anyone is wondering about me.
The airport prior to that year traveling in basketball used to be a non-thought to me. I never worried about anything while being there. I simply passed the time while waiting for my next flight and spent the flight watching a movie I downloaded on Netflix or looking out the window. Like a lot of things in my life, that year broke me down in more ways than I could have ever imagined and I am continuing to work on getting over them to this day.
I moved from my seat in the common area surrounded by glass that is now lit by the darkness of night and a few poor light fixtures in hopes of finding a better space to help my mood. I picked a unique-looking bar that was a little closer to my gate to maybe catch a game or highlights that were on TV. Instead, I was met with 3 TVs, all of which were showing the news with no sound. Sadness. I guess I'll spend my last hour in this airport with my AirPods in, my head down trying to finish this and making sure I get that window seat for my flight landing at 11:00pm.
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