The following is an account of my thoughts prior to boarding my flight to Lynchburg this past Saturday. Just so you know.
It is 4:21 AM, on November 10th. I'm sitting at gate B1, a little more than half hour before my scheduled boarding time. This is usually about the time when I start to consider going to bed for the night, so I shouldn't be tired, but I think the fact that my brain knows I won't be getting a substantial amount of sleep any time soon is making me more fatigued than usual.
Sitting in an airport terminal is an odd experience; not unpleasant, necessarily, just odd. For one thing, I've only flown... let's see... five times before this one (twice to Disney World in high school, once home for Thanksgiving break freshman year of college, once to Jamie's wedding in the Dominican Republic after my senior year of college, and once to DC for Dave and Olga's wedding just this past June). I'm far more experienced taking the train than I am flying, and I will admit that I do feel more comfortable knowing the train has a pretty slim chance of plummeting from the sky at any given point in time. In addition, railway security is far less invasive than airport security, due in large part to the fact that there is none. You just grab your bags and hop on the train, and you don't have to worry about them confiscating your pocketknife.
For another thing, I get a strange feeling as I sit here, a feeling of... not sadness, exactly, but loneliness I guess. I mean, I am here alone, so I'm sure that contributes, and I'm headed to a land far away from home. But that land is Lynchburg, which was my home for a good five years (nine months out of each of those years, anyway) and I'm going to visit some of my best friends in the world. I feel like I should be out of my skull with enthusiasm. Then again, it is 4:30 in the morning, the sun isn't up, and I'm all alone. Once I get down there, I'm sure I'll feel a little more comfortable. The air in here is a bit stuffy anyway.
There are maybe a dozen people in the whole terminal spread out across the different gates, and a lady just came over and sat down in my row. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, of course, and she's a good six or seven seats down, but with so many empty rows, it makes you wonder why she would sit in this one. Probably because it's prime real estate, as close as you can get to the gate while still facing it. Or it could just be the pheromones I'm exuding. I am quite irresistible. I dunno, I just generally prefer to be as far as possible from strangers.
A girl just walked up to the little desk in front of the gate. There's still about 20 minutes until the scheduled boarding time (4:55), and in my experience they almost never board on time, but this does provide a ray of hope. I'm questioning now, though, whether I'm just writing for the sake of writing, or whether I'm actually providing any valuable insight. Frick, I guess if I was concerned about that, I wouldn't have this blog in the first place.
My Sherriff badge made it through security. I was a little concerned about that, but not concerned enough not to risk it.
People are starting to gather at the gate, and now there are people behind me. I know they probably aren't looking at my screen, but the notion that someone could possibly be reading what I'm typing as I type it freaks me out, so I'm gonna shut this down for the time being. Catch you on the flip side.
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