Takeoff

Blog Post Six 23/03/24

The memory begins like this. I’m sitting in the window seat, to my right, is Harris (my partner) and the aisle seat is empty. It’s dark outside, almost 8:30 pm Toronto time. While inside the plane it’s still starkly lit. The flight attendants are closing all the overhead bins and doing their final checks before takeoff. Harris and I have settled into our row comfortably taking full advantage of the extra space. I look over at him and smile. It’s our first time flying together and it feels wonderfully adult. He puts his hand on mine and as the announcements come on the excitement grows, I’m going back.

With this thought quickly rushes in an overwhelming rapid of all that I’m leaving behind. I think of my mom and my dad and their suddenly announced divorce. I think of my recently widowed sister and her son. I think of our home, the only room I have left in Canada, and how soon it’ll be put on the market and sold. I think of how a new family, like the one we once were, will come in, paint the walls a different shade, build up new furniture, and fill the house with new life. I think of how quickly reality can change and how unknowing we all are to when, where, and how that change will come. It feels like I think about it all, all of the all’s.

I come back to reality with the feeling of tears streaming down my cheeks. I was so caught up in thought I hadn’t noticed the cabin lights were now dimmed and the plane was about to accelerate. I don’t look back to Harris, I keep my body turned towards the window. His hand is still on mine, I know he knows I’m crying and I also know he knows just to let me.

The plane begins to speed up and as I sit there amid an Oscar-worthy scene I realise I’m in the middle. Literally and figuratively. To my left, outside the plane window, the life I knew as home, Canada. Filled with all the familiar places and people I grew up around. The roads I know without needing a map, the places that hold memories of young girls I forgot I once was. A city that shares my history. Then to my right, Harris, this person whom I love from a home that still feels young. Scotland, a place that has only been home for a year. Where no building, room, or field reflects a version of myself I once was because like I am to it, it is to me, unknown. And there I sit, in the middle, watching the past, pass by through the oval-shaped looking glass while my future holds my hand, lets me mourn, and waits patiently to embrace me when I’m ready to turn and face it.