Tag: 2023

plane people

I generally feel neutral or indifferent towards strangers until I am on a plane, and then I realize I actually carry a deep hatred of two specific types of Plane People:

The Touchy Couple

You know when you purchase an aisle seat to get those two more inches of extra room, but then you’re sat next to Kat and Kameron Kissface? Why does the man always sit in the middle and why does he spread both his arms over the arm rests and open his legs out so you have to awkwardly scoot your legs into the aisle to avoid touching him when we all know it’s common courtesy to keep your hands and feet inside the middle seat. And Kat won’t stop touching him, can’t keep her hands off Kameron, and if they don’t play with each others hair and hands and faces every 30 seconds they might die. And every time Kat adjusts in her seat and complains, Kameron bumps you again and you want to flush them both down the airplane power toilet.

The Awful Family

  • Arrives late
  • Don’t know how to put a carry on in the top compartment
  • Spills water down the aisle
  • Screaming baby
  • The baby is still screaming
  • Makes me never want kids
  • Also babies should not be allowed on flights where do they need to go that badly, keep them low to the ground until they’re 7.

Everyone else is fine.

on comfort and reassurance

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.

George Eliot

When you finally muster up the courage to look inside and realize why do I feel this way and choose to open yourself up to someone and share, there is an opportunity for that other person to say I will make sure I do everything I can to make sure you don’t feel this way. I think that is what George Eliot is referring to in his wonderful quote above, and doesn’t that feel like safety? I read it and I feel a whisper of safety inside, like someone might one day hear me when I am feeling fragile and say I will hold onto all the cracked parts with you and let you know you have nothing to worry about – the cracks are only in your mind.

It’s a different feeling when you open up and are met with no reassurance, no comfort. For me, I wrap myself in the gates I mistakenly opened and cauterize myself shut. I build a defense and cover it in plaster until my wall is even deeper than it was tall, and the gate is nowhere to be found.

If I can’t open I won’t need comfort, if I can’t feel the need for reassurance I will never need to be reassured again. It is such an effort to dig through again and again, bleeding under my nails from scratching and peeling through the layers of plaster to find the gate every time I think this could be different, you were right to open the gate. I think the breath of kindness is here, the one sentence that could change everything bad I feel and wrap it up in a warm blanket and heal the wound with safety.

But it is only a very lovely quote that is very nice to daydream about and imagine the whispers of safety could be reality one day.