I like airports.
I like how everyone has a purpose, and everyone is working toward the same purpose. I like how there are so many different types of people, and how few are impatient because there’s a system and you don’t need to do anything. I like how there are obvious signs and food and places to sit. I like the internet and the charging stations. But most of all, I like that there is nothing to do but wait.
Wait and think, that is. Or read a book (I read three on the way over), or write (in the midst of noisy overlapping bubbles of flight calls, TV announcers, and loud conversations), or think, like I said. I had a marvelous holiday.
It was a short holiday, beginning on Sunday and ending Tuesday. It was filled with wonderful people, who paid for my tickets, who gave me gifts, who laughed with me and told me snippets about their lives that I’m missing because I’m living in Boston. My mom introduced me for the first time as her daughter who’s from Boston. It’s true. Home is a flexible place.
My cousins are talkative and happy, and obsessed with HGTV (yeah, I don’t know what it is either.) My uncle and my dad took me skiing, and it was snowing little glass pellets at my face, but they made wonderful fluff once hitting the ground. I went flying down the slope, lower half twisting and turning, barely in control, throwing my poles in the air in exhilaration. My uncle fell off the ski lift while getting on, and my dad thought he was an idiot. Then my dad fell off the other side. It was very embarrassing for them, so I figured it was only appropriate to memorialize it on the “interweb” forever.
The word “salient” became a running joke over the days, since I mentioned that Wellesley professors are very fond of the term. My sisters are wonderful and computer-focused, and we know each other too well. Nicole got into Assassin’s Creed and is thus obsessed. My mom and I went clothes shopping and Target shopping and I didn’t have to pay for anything :).
My parents looked over my 4-Year Plan and scrapped the potential-maybe-can I? psych minor. The Plan (capitalized) has been newly updated with their approval and I can see that now I’ll be better prepared for… whatever I’m doing after this. I am, as always, confused by what I’m supposed to be doing with my life, but love that I have the time and great fortune to be able to decide. I love that my parents can still advise me what to do, because I’m in my head a lot of the time, and this is my first shot at life. I’m calling a professor I met at the University of Minnesota last year to ask her too.
I’m trying to write my essence in 500 words or less. Summer applications are a must, and I’m much better at it now than I was when I was writing my college applications. My parents have been telling me that relationships are more important than grades in many instances. How can I form a relationship with you, my dear reviewers; how can I write you the best of who I am?
I am thankful to all of the people in my life, for the giving that lets me have a ride back to Wellesley at 1:30am when my flight gets in, for the friend who lets me sleep in her room at 1:30am when Wellesley’s not open. I am thankful to be going back to my team, my foster family; I am grateful for the exercise, food, animated movies and books. I am thankful for the holidays and love and kindness. I am grateful for the reflection; for time to just wait. Wait and think.
I like airports.
Donner Lake, Truckee, CA