Leaving on a jet plane

As I sat at gate 79 waiting for my flight to be called, I flipped open my laptop to begin my first blog. During my stay here I have had the privilege of editing a friend's book. Before this trip we had never met, but during my stay we became good friends. She began blogging a few years back, and her blog is now being turned into a book. Its been exciting getting to know someone just by reading their blog, in her case its almost like reading a personal diary, and I think I got to know her pretty well through it. That's where the inspiration to begin blogging came from. I have thought about it many times before, but I've never felt I had anything to say which I could put into words in any coherent manner and quickly, but that was then and this is now.

I pasted the lyrics to my song 'Inside Out' as a preface to my blog as they explain a lot about me as a person. While I played with the blog I connected my new toy (a voice recorder) to my laptop and began transferring MP3s to it (I can also use my new toy as an MP3 player). The only songs in my laptop were a selection of worship songs which I had copied in a hurry right before I left home, plus my own band's recordings. I transferred the worship songs first. My flight was called and I let the transfer complete its last 30 seconds, but I had no time to transfer the band's songs.

I began boarding and as I waited in the line on the bridge I exchanged a few goodbye text messages. This is a highly-charged emotional departure for me. The trip was the antitheses of everything I wanted, everything I had hoped for and dreamed of. I am not even able to answer "yes" honestly if someone were to ask me did I have a good time. I have already been asked this and I lied. The truth was just too painful at that moment, and would only have caused a bunch of probing questions which I did not want to answer and which would have upset me more. Sorry. In one moment I can be fine and happy, in the next I can be in tears, and I have little control over when and how it happens. With me, unexpected things can trigger an outward display of any kind of emotion. I guess that means I'm "Emo", but I'd rather be fully emotional than to have no emotion or worse, to simply bury them. The only reason I see for burying emotions is if you're trying to hide the real you, lying to yourself and everyone else, but in fact people see through it anyway. Its a bad habit I gave up long ago. There was a time when I really had no emotions, when I didn't really "feel" anything about anything. I know that i prefer who I am now.

I took my seat (15F, a window seat) and made myself comfortable, grabbing the book I am half way through reading, pushed my laptop bag under the seat in front of me, turned off my phone and stuffed it in the front pocket of my jeans along with my new toy. I slid open the two window blinds next to me so I could see out. On short flights I love to look at the land below. The seatbelt light came on and we began taxiing toward the runway. I could hear some music quietly in the background and it seemed to be something I recognised, I tuned my ear into the sound and I heard the words "When you're weak He is strong, He can heal your wounded soul and calm the storm inside." The music was coming from my front pocket. Somehow my new toy had turned itself on, and played to me only the words that I needed to hear at that exact moment in time (Sixpence None the Richer – With every breath). Perfect! There's only one source of perfection on the planet. I quickly turned off my toy and pushed it back into my pocket, and a wide grin came across my face as I realised what had just happened, and the pure poetry of it. I think I may have even laughed out loud. I knew it was no coincidence, and I knew I was not alone in my turmoil. Right away I took out my notepad (since the laptop had to be switched off during take-off) and began writing all about it...