flights and nights

I used to thrill to the idea of going to the airport.

Heck, I'd get excited just driving by the Philadelphia airport on I-95, watching those planes take off, imagining all the fun and exciting places I was sure they'd land.

See, airports could mean Florida to see my Mimi. Or picking her up at Christmas time and first of all finding her tiny 4 foot 10 inch self that, more often than not, had gotten lost on the way to baggage claim, and then carrying her floor-length mink coat while trying not to think too much about all of the little animals that might still be alive today if not for the thing in my arms that was heavy and hairy enough to feel like I was being hugged by a gorilla.

Providing, of course, that we actually did find her.

Going through security could mean eventually arriving in England and Whales and getting laughed at for asking for American cheese at a restaurant because apparently that kind of cheese has no market outside of you guessed it, America. So we'd eat British cheese and learn a thing or two about how much more of this world there is to experience than just our own country, as lovely as it can be at times.

Boarding a plane could mean traveling to sunny California, buying a brightly tie-dyed blue and white bathing suit that, to my 8 year old self, was what I had been waiting for my entire life. It was perfection in spandex, meeting both my mom's standards for modesty and my standards for style.

We'd sit on the plane in anticipation, whiling away the hours with games and talking, reading and laughing. It was my brothers and I, my parents, and eventually a little sister and I was happy to go, always, because I was going with my favorite people on earth.

But this has all changed now.

I no longer love airports.

They often make me sad, they often mean good-bye for now, and I often go alone.

They are at worst a lonely trip and at best business as normal with a window seat and a pack of peanuts to make it a little bit better.

Not good, but better.

This is the same with hotels. I used to love their novelty, enjoyed being in a new place, crawling into my as of yet un-slept in bed.

But again, that has changed.

A few weeks ago I was home for one night and Drew, in an effort towards romance, suggested that we stay at a hotel in Philly. I balked. I wanted my red front door, my cats peering at us through the window because they heard the car door slam and knew we were coming home. I wanted a bed that I'd slept in many times before, our bed, with it's familiar smell and blankets that kn0w the shape of our bodies.

I wanted home.

Drew, having not been on tour for the past year of his life, has had a lot of home. I get that, I do. But more than anything else, I wanted home.

And he got that, too.

When I have the luxury of time at home again, I am thinking that airports and hotels might become pretty cool again to me.

But not yet.