Departure

Yesterday I thought I wasn’t nervous.  This morning I felt alternately like I might erupt into giggles, throw up, or burst into tears. I did burst into tears briefly, actually.  But only as I was saying goodbye  to a good friend at LAX.  That’s pretty good for me, as I often get choked up over Subaru commercials.  I thought I might be weepy all week, but I managed to stay relatively dry.

When something has been in the future so long it can be hard to come to grips with it being in the present.  The last day or so, I kept doing reality checks with myself – do I recognize what’s about to happen tomorrow?  Do I know what I’m getting myself into?  I sort of felt as though I ought to be freaked out, so it somehow worried me that I wasn’t.  It would seem that I was actually internalizing it.  After thinking very little about my trip through the day, my stomach was roiling all night last night, making it difficult to sleep.

I flew Korean Air, which was quite lovely.  The flight attendants are all tiny little things dressed in crisp, almost futuristic suits of beige and robin’s egg teal with adorable projectile ribbons and scarves jutting off from their head and neck in different directions.  They actually look like the people in the airline’s commercials, except less tall and more Asian.  International flights are such a different species from domestic American ones. They feed you quite well and don’t nit-pick you about your baggage.  Not only were my bags free, they weren’t even weighed to see if they came in under the 50lb limit (trust me, they would not have cleared that bar).  Even the TSA agents in the international terminal were friendlier than usual.  They made jokes and small talk and generally seemed to be having the best day ever – and not even just the ones who get to look at people naked.

My lack of sleep last night seemed like it could help me to get some on the plane, so I tried to, but only managed a few hours out of the 11 hour trip.  Between naps, I checked out the movies on other people’s screens and tried to convince myself I should be studying my materials for work. Which I did eventually do.  Right after I watched Green Hornet…