you want my outline drawn, you were my greatest failure

Anberlin, "Feel Good Drag"

I’m in the Atlanta airport waiting for my flight. There was a program flight leaving from New York City, but my parents found a cheaper one out of Hartsfield-Jackson, so I’m going to meet one of the program advisors in the Madrid airport. 

Part of me is anxious thinking about everyone already meeting each other, as if they’ll be best friends before I get there and I’ll automatically be excluded, always on the edges, not getting the jokes, not being in the “remember when?” stories.  But I know that’s silly. I already know two people from my Spanish class, anyway, who I don’t really want to spend every moment of the next month with, but at least I’ll know someone.

And mostly I’m relieved to not have to put up with the small talk and social jostling just yet: who will be popular? Who will hook up? Who is the hottest, the coolest, the craziest? I’d rather relax, listen to my iPod and maybe flip through a book. I’ve never been on a flight this long before, but hopefully I’ll be able to sleep. I think orientation doesn’t start until the day after I get there, but I’m not sure.

Hopefully I won’t get anyone like Calvin sitting next to me. I already have my headphones in, even though they’re not connected to anything, the end of the cord shoved into my jeans pocket. I figure if I seem occupied, no one will talk to me. I could also pretend to only know Spanish, but since I’m sure at least some of the flight will be legit Spaniards, I probably shouldn’t try and pull that one off.

They recommended that we get here way early—two and a half hours before the flight—and my parents were concerned about traffic on the drive, so I ended up arriving more than three hours before the flight. I’ve still got about an hour to wait. Thank god I have my laptop, even though there’s no free wireless. Probably a good thing: I’d just end up on Facebook.

Pictures of dates, engagements, weddings, puppies, tattoos, piercings. Glimpses into other people’s lives, endless, refreshing itself: why? What makes this so compelling? Addicting, even? It’s not out of control, but it’s like a default background noise, a channel to watch whenever there’s a pause.

Is it just silence, blankness, that I don’t want? Or the thoughts that might crawl up in the darkness, catch up with my mind once it stops running? I need to stop this, need to face whatever it is: guilt, fear, boredom. I’m running away to Spain, and I have a nine hour flight to think about why.