Oh Atlanta

The Atlanta airport is a very large shopping mall, and there are also planes, and at some point everyone there, aside from those punching in and out will get on one.  By the end of the day, everyone crossing paths on the concourse or in the restaurants or bathrooms will wind up places far flung. Every baked good there is prepackaged in individual plastic bags somewhere else, but meticulously unwrapped and displayed to appear freshly baked. At Starbucks they were committing the cardinal sin of visibly opening individual plastic wrappers and transferring item upon order into Starbucks bags, busting the myth wide open. It doesn’t seem fair to still pay a premium for your fancy banana bread when they so irreverently stop playing the game, especially so clumsily, the surreptitious transfer at waist height angled only slightly away, opening one bag and feeding it to another, but it sticks to the wrapper so takes several tries and touching fingers and oh, it’s airport baked goods mayhem. I’m in the Atlanta airport for the same reason as everyone else, to get off a plane and on a plane. My gate was changed at the last minute because my plane we’re told, had an oil leak, I’m fine with this change of plans, I prefer a plane not leaking anything although when I’m seated my air vent is leaking water on me which is far, far preferable to the oil issue. My last few flights have all been delayed, I think our aircraft fleet is getting old.

We eventually filed onto a small plane, two seats to a row. I was near the back next to a large man who’s wife and kids were behind us. He helpfully informed me that there were empty seats up front, either out of pity or wanting the empty seat for himself. I’d just watched him transfer the contents of three oversized laminated shopping bags the kind you get at any big box store check out lane for an extra buck or two, in this case Home Goods, into the smaller than usual overhead bins. They made all of us with small suitcases check them at the last minute as they weren’t going to fit, and as mine houses my laptop, I took that out and brought it naked onto the plane, unsheathed. This man’s large shopping bags wouldn’t fit, so he had to empty them out of their crunchy snack food contents -- bags and bags, bags of bags of chips and cheetos, cookies, a cornucopia of crunchy snack food and beach balls straight into the bin. Are the bahamas bereft of crunchy, salty treats? I can’t imagine, Freeport is within spitting distance of Florida, maybe it’s to save money, but is it really worth the price in dignity lost, number of bags schlepped? I’m in search of sharks and dolphins, I guess they’re looking for crunchy snack filled beach days, maybe road trip would have been a better option.

I snuck into first class which was only designated by the larger seats, but they kicked me back to the row behind, wedged between window and obese man who ate a banana and then ordered two bloody mary’s, for himself. The row in front of me remained empty, with it’s large comfy seats glaring backwards at me. Hierrarchy. He’s onto the third cocktail now with a bag of chocolate chip cookies chasing. Ewww.

The sky is clear blue and I’ve been able to see the ground the whole way thus far through the puffy cotton ball clouds. I’m watching the shadows they’re casting on the ground. I keep hoping the shadows will bump into each other, but they don't, they drift parallel, along the same wind. My row-mate was very quiet until we landed and then the drinks kicked in. A cajun boy from louisiana going through his third divorce, this bitch was just after his money. His grandkids, he said, kept him on the straight and narrow but he was going to visit friends who had a house down here and he’d packed a jar of rioux and was gonna catch some fish and cook it up right.

I’ve been cancer-free for five and a half years now. I didn’t announce that, I don’t know how to celebrate. I knew how to once but I stopped somewhere along the way. Maybe that happens when you’ve been a mom for a while, celebrating everyone else’s milestones, maybe it happens after living with someone for a quarter century who doesn’t give a shit about you. But ultimately, I’m the one with paralysis, I could make different decisions, I could challenge myself, be less of a lone wolf, but we are what we are and we is what we is and I'm really embracing my lone wolf side these days, I think it's who I am. I meant to celebrate my first year cancer free but then I got superstitious. I meant to celebrate my 50th birthday, but I never quite got to it, I’m 54 now. I feel untethered without my regular oncology visits at the same time I miss them less and less and I don’t panic at every anomaly, every suspicion, every bad day. Cancer will always be a part of my life, it has certainly altered my appearance and my functioning, my brain hasn't recovered from the massive doses of poison, lifesaving though they might have been. It’s a new normal, despite my very wise friend who say’s “normal is a myth” and with that I agree, but my life now and my life then are very different, not just because of the malignant cells demanding attention but because it was already a time of great change. I’m thoroughly divorced, I’ve gone through menopause, so my body is different and not just because of the surgeries and drugs, things change. And there has been loss because people with cancer meet other people with cancer and they bond strongly and save each others lives and sanity, but some of them die. Things change and sometimes it's grand. I’m getting to know my oldest son as an adult and it’s an experience more beautiful than I can describe, I won't even try for fear of ruining it by confining it to words, it seems too big to be restricted in that way. I miss having babies and toddlers so much and so often, but this is a new joy I couldn’t have imagined. My younger son is going to be a senior in high school, I don’t know how that’s possible, every cliché is true, you blink, and well, you know the rest. I'm acutely aware that this is the last year I will have a child living at home and am equally excited and terrified at the prospect. I find myself clinging to every moment with him, every shared meal, every laugh, every conversation and every single hug, every moment of our daily routines, every bit of minutia. A lot has happened in the past five years, the most unexpected is that I’ve discovered travelling for which I’ve become insatiable, and have fallen deep in love with the ocean (when it’s warm) which brings me to the Atlanta airport, killing time, waiting for a plane.