After servicing Row 10, Seats A, B, and C, it was our turn. “What will it be for your brood, sir?” “Is one biscuit and pretzel good for the kiddo? If not, I can do something different. No, are you sure now? To drink? Apple juice. Coming at you. Are we looking at 75% or 50%? Don’t want it too full, do we now?”
There’s a line between helpful and too helpful. It’s hard to spot, like Waldo in a jungle of red and white striped ladybugs, but when you do, you do. And if you’re me, you feel compelled to call it out on your blog like you have the number one answer on Family Feud.
I smiled and nodded, laughed and told her she was right, and wondered, does she really love her job, or is there a drug for that?
Not even fifteen minutes passed when Dave furrowed his brow as the beverage cart with Ms. triangle-rimmed glasses, and sideways banana-clipped hair returned. With nearby trays down, most with little AA-like coffee cups still half full, my fellow flight members and I hadn’t even gotten up for our first number #1. The crew mustn’t have received my too-helpful memo.
Having watched a third of the movie “Past Lives” on the flight to Atlanta, I watched the remaining three-quarters back to Seattle. Damn, it got me, it was really good, so much so it jerked a few tears out of me. The writer did a wonderful job communicating the human dilemma, the painful conflict that comes with the weight of our choices, and the heavy emotional burden we bear.
While waiting at a bar-height table for a chicken, bacon, and ranch at the airport, I asked Evelyn, “What do you think about living next to your cousins, to Emma?” “I will miss my school. I will miss Barrett. And Maxwell. And that long-haired girl with the bow. Emily. That’s her name. And Ethan.” My heart sank and my chest fell heavy because I know; I too am bearing my own pain. When Dave walked up, I said, “Who will you miss, Dave, when we move?” Patric, he said. And Marty.
So we shared our pains, we must lean on each other.
In counseling sessions I often will educate on transitions; about their psychological upheaval, how they change us, and how we are not the same by their end. I sense that for myself. The panicky nights and days I’ve been having do find still waters. I need to lean back and let myself flow feet first downstream. Big boulders and swift-moving currents will come, and I may get bruised. But then I’ll eddy, float in circles, and wonder if I’ll ever move again. And then there’ll be times when all is in the groove, as they are most of the time, and I’ll sit back in my rocking chair, take a sip of my ice sweet tea (I am in Georgia in this dream after all) and be grateful for all the hard work I did to get myself there.
It’s not linear, this thing called life, is it? It’s the thirteenth floor that drops to the second, that we pry open and take the stairs up to the fifteenth to admire the view before jumping off with vinyl wings to drift in the current.
How about you clasp my hand and we go for bit of a walk?
Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 