I always loved flying as a kid, because airplanes were so often connected to Disney World, or a beach trip or somewhere else fun and exciting. As I grew older, my dad’s job changed, and the flights became fewer and further between. I began to develop a new affection for the airports themselves as opposed to the actual flying. Weird, right? How often is it you hear someone profess their love for a crowded place filled with tired people, security that makes you take your shoes off and overpriced food?
Students flocked home from Boston University over the three-day weekend last weekend, myself included. I navigated my way through the T to find myself at Boston’s Logan International Airport. It had been a while since I had flown, and my flight ended up sitting on the runway for longer than we were in the air. Regardless, I landed in Newark, where I had to sit and wait at International Arrivals for my dad who was returning from Italy. I took a seat under those yellow airport lights on a stiff, dirty chair and waited.
And I could feel the excitement in the air.
As I sat there, I fell in love with airports all over again. I watched two grandkids holding a sign for their grandfather as he walked through the gate. I watched a boy stand patiently for at least an hour with a bouquet of flowers to hand to his girlfriend when she finally landed. I caught myself getting excited for the moment he saw her too. When I watched my dad walk through the gate, I felt the universal feeling they were all experiencing. Relief. Comfort. The most genuine type of happiness.
My time at home flew by, spent with a small amount of people I would consider to be the most important in my life thus far. When it came to a close, my dad drove me back to Newark to get back to school.
As soon as I pulled up to the airport, I immediately realized how different the same place felt just a few days after I had been there last. I was sad to say goodbye to my parents, sisters and boyfriend again, and it immediately shaped the same yellow lights and stiff chair a bit differently. I walked through the airport, late at night, and felt a sadder atmosphere than the one I had flown into — a tired one — one of people on business trips returning home after the weekend, of people going back to real life after a little piece of vacation time. It just felt … different.
And then I saw a family that reminded me of my own when I was little. The mom was breaking a sweat trying to get the kids through security, and the little ones were simply too excited to contain themselves. And it reminded me of all the good and excitement and love that airports carry too.
My conclusion? Airports are one of — if not the only — place that has the ability to shift entirely based solely on where you are going to or coming from, who is waiting for you, with time it is and why you’re flying at all.
The same terminal looks vastly different following another round of goodbyes. The same gate looks different as you run through it to meet your grandkids with posters or your boyfriend with flowers than it did when you walked through it with no one on the other side. Airports really are a place of altered reality — and they could not make it any clearer that it is not about where you’re going, but who is there.
