20 September 2024, Friday

My journey to Albuquerque starts normal after the rush of remembering my flight was leaving from San Antonio. I don’t lace my hiking boots and face plant in the parking lot, scraping the lens of my glasses, my hands and knees. I take the bus from my apartment to the bus station, showing up early for my 4:05 pm bus to San Antonio. The bus is delayed, first 11 mins, then 20, then 30. I realize I need to start looking for an Uber to the airport instead because the bus was looking too late to make my flight in time.

It takes 30 stressful minutes to get a Lyft driver to come by and actually talk to me after everyone else rejects my ride to San Antonio. I tell the driver the situation, that I’ll Zelle him $100 directly outside Lyft. The ETA for the airport is 6:15 at this point, my flight departs at 6:25. I have to try. I had only eaten a couple little charcuterie pieces, drank a coffee, and had 2 glasses of champagne at this point and I was so stressed. I felt nauseous the whole drive there, couldn’t look at my phone, just laying my head back and trying to relax. I have to throw up. I throw up in my mouth and hold it back with tight lips and my hoodie. No way was I throwing up in the car of this man who was kind enough to take me all the way to San Antonio in rush hour traffic.

I make it to the airport at 6:08, race in, and attempt to cut in line for security. I ask the woman at the front of the line, “Hey my flight leaves in 10 mins can I cut?” and she says “mine too” and gives me a cold stare. I make eye contact with a girl a few people behind and she motions me to come over and cut her, everyone ahead of her passes me along, letting me go in front of each of them. I get to the second person in line, who’s right behind the woman who brushed me off. He’s an old man who smiles at me and says “what a bitch” and we laugh about the ridiculousness of it. The line past the ID checkpoint is too slow. I ask TSA if there’s anything they can do and they don’t help. I don’t have time to tie my hiking boots when I put them on again so I stuff the laces in and immediately trip and fall to the ground. A TSA agent gives me a concerned look and asks if I’m ok.

Sprint to my gate, my bags are so heavy, everything hurts, I’m trying not to trip, I’m so out of breath, am I gonna make it? I get to gate A4 and the door is closed with no one at the desk, but I see the plane is still there connected to the bridge. It’s just before 6:25. Exhausted, I dump my things on the ground and run back through the people waiting at A5 to talk to a person at the front desk. This Delta employee tells me the door is closed and they aren’t allowed to open it. I’m standing there, panting, defeated, nauseous, and immediately run to the trash can close enough to where people are sitting and throw up pure acid. People shrink away in their chairs, staring at my back, shaking, crying, groaning. I feel better but I’m crying from throwing up, I take off my bandana and wipe my mouth. I see the Delta guy on the radio, looking through the window at the cockpit of my plane. He motions for me to go to the desk of A4, where he says the crew isn’t answering but he’ll find me another flight. Five minutes later, when it’s definitely too late to open the gate again, he radios them back and they respond. I stand there waiting as he searches wondering what’s going to happen next. He gets me the first flight out of town for the following day, and I’ll be in Albuquerque by 11:55 am, but I have to be on the standby list for the flight from Salt Lake City to Albuquerque. Yes!!! I sit down and catch my breath.

Jocelyn had DM’ed me earlier, offering her house if I ended up missing my flight. While I wait for her to come pick me up, I go to this airport Mexican restaurant. This woman laughing with some customers takes my order and said I looked like I’d had a long day, so I tell her I missed my flight because my bus from Austin was late and threw up in front of everyone. She laughs with me and the customers. The fish tacos are awesome.

Jocelyn rescues me, I’m so happy to see her, it had been 2 years. We catch up on the way back and in her childhood kitchen. Talk about what our lives are like now, reminisce, call Iryl. The three of us are together again.

After she leaves to go to a birthday party, I walk outside and see the moon. Giant, yellow, waning from mid-autumn. I walk 30 mins through the suburbs to go to a smoke shop because I realized I forgot my sleeping pills. The guy at the convenience store/smoke shop gave me a fist bump when I walked up and as I left, calling me brother and smiling genuinely at me. At the next convenience store, the men behind the counter give me the same genuinely kind smiles. Things are beautiful. I love people. There are kind, beautiful people everywhere.