Airport Terminal

It wasn’t ever my choice to move as a kid, because I was a military brat. No matter how much I tried to reason with my father, a man who was constantly under orders to move to the next duty station, I never was able to ever really quite convince him to stay in places that I had loved living. The closest I had ever gotten was when I got into an argument with him in Virginia Beach, shortly after he had retired from the Navy. I guilt tripped him for taking control over my life and for separating me from all of my friends. “I want to move back to Italy!” I yelled at him. Bad news for me, we were going to move to Alaska. It was the last time I would ever give up in this endless battle to find refuge in one single place. The world would be my home, the feelings I would have sitting in the middle of airport terminals, sleep deprived, and desperate for a place to call my own.

These days, I wrestle with the idea of traveling. Traveling had always been an unconscious exercise to make it to the next destination without conflict. I wrestle with the buried feelings from my own experiences that come up en route. I’ll admit, I was and have been that jaded adult that watches as kids younger than me go out into the world and travel. It’s my kryptonite as they glorify their experiences and share the beautiful corners of the world. I could do without the oversaturated gratitude that they put on, that “You are not living unless you’re out there.” I could bite my tongue and curse them. But there has always been a truth that has separated me from them. It’s that I have always carried the fear of what’s out there.

Yes, I am and was scared when I think about the control I have over my life. I had never felt that before, because in the military life everything is a checklist. In between those checks, those liminal spaces where a moment to breathe exist, are crowded with dreadful memories. There have been times I had missed flights. There had been moments I had felt unsafe. But there have also been moments when the sun shines brightly in the northern sky.

My story starts in New York City, the place that I have chosen as a home. I live in Queens. I am struggling to figure out what the book will be about, but I think, much like the journey to follow, it will unfold to me when needed.