It’s raining.
Which, I feel like is fitting for the final day.
Kelly already left. We walked her to the train station. It started drizzling then and by the time we got back to the house and I got back in bed, it has progressed into a nice, rainy day.
It’s sad and it’s not. I love nothing more than just warm enough sheets and the sound of rain on the roof. It’s my favorite and if this were any other morning, I wouldn’t have to think about anything. I could just focus on the pitter patter and the feeling of my feet warming up and the cotton on my legs. I could think about the smell of the tatami mats and the light leaking past the curtains. I would have time to write paragraphs about it.
But it is not any other morning. I need to get up and pack. I need to get to the station.
But I think I can appreciate five more minutes.
–
I’m alone now. For real.
Marisa isn’t sneezing in the next room over (she did come with me to the bus station and subsequently saved my life because, as stated before, Rachel: bad at directions). I’m not brushing elbows with anyone. I’m not flanked on either side. I’m alone on a bus with no one sitting next to me and no one to talk to.
I’m usually fine with this kind of thing. And I am. I can look out the window and listen to music.
But I’m also very used to being in my lit, symbiotic squad. Marisa said that at one point it almost felt like we were just all having conversations with ourselves but saying it out loud to the group because it didn’t matter anymore. And it’s true. Sometimes you spend so much time with people it’s like they stop being people and just become unpredictable fragments of yourself. It doesn’t even really count as socialization. It’s just weird.
Something else that’s weird is that this whole trip feels like both forever and like it lasted one whole second. It doesn’t feel linear, it feels like everything happened all at once.
There are a lot of moments that are so clear and crisp, I can’t believe I wasn’t there a second ago. That I can’t just jump back into that lagoon.
I’m not on this bus that has upholstery that wouldn’t be out of place in a run down bowling alley. I’m in a van to the floating market, in the middle of a storm. Or I’m finding the gecko in our room or standing on top of a mountain, looking down over rice paddies.
I keep getting surprised that I’m sitting here at the end, that I’m not living those moments in real time. That I’m not just getting on the plane at LAX, right at the start.
–
Theres no one next to me on the plane this time. I have lots of space to spread out into.
I guess I should be writing a concluding statement now that I’m on a plane back to the States.
If I wasn’t lazy, I could go back and reread what I wrote on my first flight and try to see if I learned anything. But my eyes feel like they’re peeling (I’m not really sure what I mean by that but it’s what it feels like).
I remember on my flight over talking about how I felt like I wasn’t actually going to go on a trip and that I was just sitting in a tube for a couple of hours and watching movies and that we were going to land in a few hours. Not in Asia, but back at home and that my mom was going to come pick me up.
Well I’m back in the tube, I’m watching movies, and my mom is going to come pick me up.
The plane has the same movies and the same food. The only difference is Marisa isn’t snoozing peacefully on one side and I don’t have an electrical engineer teaching me about the wonders of Air Canada’s free alcohol policy. But it feels the same.
It’s a weird spot to be in. I still feel like I can step back into moments like they happened seconds ago if I think about it. But I also haven’t slept and I’ve watched so many movies, so it’s really easy to pretend like I’ve just been here, in seat 41 A forever.
But it be like that.
I think if anything, writing all of this down has helped me remember everything way better. It’s not a blur. And it was kind of fun, getting to reconstruct each day at the end, or even while it was happening. I struggle with being present a lot of times. But having this helped keep me in the moment.
We’ve been chasing the sun this time around and we just caught up. It’s cool, getting to watch the horizon emerge from the sky as it gets lighter.
That also means it’s morning and I haven’t slept but really what’s new.
It’s always good to go into things completely delirious if you really want to question if anything you just did for a month really happened.
I forgot about Air Canada’s cool tinted windows. Everything is purple.
Canada itself looks really cool. We’re flying over it right now. There’s a bunch of mountains that still have snow. They’ve got little divots at the top that have lakes in them. It looks very peaceful. Maybe we can do Canada next. There are layers of mountains and water. It looks like some shit that some ancient gods would roam.
Yeah there isn’t going to be any kind of higher thought process right now.
Earlier, I barely made my connecting flight back to North America. I got to do some Final Drama and spring through the airport at full speed. I even went on the fast walk way to do it so I could really feel like I was pushing super human speeds. I wasn’t, but I still got to my gate on time, only to find out that it was delayed.
This was tragic because I’m out of shape and that was painful. And because I had decided against getting a pizza so I could make my flight. But that’s probably for the best considering how rough that run was. Also,
I’m sure if I hallucinated this or not but as I was making my sprint, I looked over and saw a man running the opposite direction, but he was dressed in work out clothes and didn’t have a bad. He was very sweaty.
So the only thing I can really conclude from this was that this man was seriously working out in an international terminal. Which, you know, gains stop for no man, but also.
I’m still sad about my pizza.
–
We just landed in Canada and I went through immigration. It’s my least favorite thing. Like I know I didn’t do anything too dumb, but I get nervous and then the immigration person starts giving me The Eye and suddenly I’m uncertain if I really was where I thought I was and if I blacked out for a couple days, ended up committing international crime or becoming a mule or handling live stock. I get sweaty and the immigration officer gets suspicious and we all lose.
But this was fine, there’s now a computer that asks you the questions and a person who scans it and waves you through, so ya gurl is back in the States, metaphorically and didn’t have an almost break down in front of the person who is in charge of determining whether or not i should be let back into the country.
Anyways.
The Vancouver Airport is just as lit as it was before. All the fish in the big aquarium look the same and happy to be swimming around. I saw some jellyfish this time too.
And I know how saying this is going to make me sound, but I don’t even care. I passed by a Starbucks and I Craved. Even though we utilized many a Starbucks for bathroom opportunities, I was strong and didn’t get any. But now, all bets should be off. Except I only have about ten minutes before I’m supposed to board and there are about twenty people standing in between me and a sweet, sweet cappuccino.
So I must wait.
–
I am on the curb waiting for my mom to pick me up.
I got off the flight, walked past the store where I panic bought my air plane blanket and almost passed out at (I don’t think I talked about this, but it was either no sleep or reading an article about a face transplant and seeing a picture and having a visceral fear reaction. Either way.), cruised straight out of the terminal without having to do U.S Customs again (we are blessed), past another Starbucks, picked up my bags and parked myself on the curb.
Which.
Now that I’m here, I remember thinking (or maybe even writing something) about knowing that I would be standing here, waiting for my mom and wondering what I would be thinking about in this moment.
And luckily, I haven’t slept in a long, long time and I can’t really think about anything at all.
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