Maybe Love Begins At Baggage Claim

The more time I spend in airports,
the more I find that first and last loves happen at airports and on airplanes.
I’ve watched through glass windows as couples make their ways through
walking escalators, maybe on their first trip
or on their last trip.

I’ve watched businessmen and women, calling their loved ones
In cheap chain restaurants, giving them updates
as they try to navigate through unseasoned airport visitors
who aren’t swift with packing for TSA standards.

I’ve watched people travel solo, documenting their journeys,
eating alone in expensive airport diners
where they can spend money
on classy glasses of wine and crafted beers
because they aren’t sure who else to spend it on.

But throughout all of my experiences in airports,
I never really paid much attention to my own.

I’ve always enjoyed the bustle of airports,
never quite feeling companionless, even on a red eye flight
because I was never the only solo traveler, anywhere
in the world.

Though each time I return from a trip,
I watch my relationships change as I modify from all of the
life I have experienced through each pass of an airport.
Sometimes relationships end, and sometimes they begin
at airport baggage claims.

And I wonder if we are all jumping onto planes,
wondering where our next relationships will begin
who they will begin with
where they will begin.

And while we may not all be literally sifting our way through
airports around the world
we are sifting through our own luggage,
dropping our unnecessary baggage
in the back of our brains while we internally search for new luggage,
opening our hearts to tickets that will take us to unexplored areas,
in search of bettering ourselves.

And I’ve been recently wondering if I have stopped
searching for new places to travel
because I have found a baggage claim in my mind
and in the world
that I am comfortable spending a little extra time exploring
because I know what familiar face
waits at the other end of the baggage claim,
eager to begin a new adventure with me.