One Way Ticket

These days it seems like each time I walk in my front door a housemate is either stepping out, moving out, or leaving on a jet plane. While I on the other hand feel like I'm deserted on a barren island that strangely resembles my city block. But with everyone around me vacationing, or leaving entirely, I have had some extra social time to find my love passport and start getting some new stamps in it. But dating, just like traveling, can be exhausting and more tiresome then originally recognized. Both are always romanticized into being great and luxurious, like a 1950's American Airlines advert where all the men wear tailored suits and all the women look like Grace Kelley. Damn, was that a lie. The reality is, dating is a lot more dangerous then flying. I'd take grouchy security guards with their beeping wands over talking to a stranger at the bar any day. Every time we decide to go out on a date, or agree to get a drink with someone, or ask someone out for dinner we are buying a one way, non-refundable, ticket to a destination we aren't aware of. Dating, or seeing someone, is like an impromptu flight purchase without the free peanuts. Or the hot towels. The idea is so risky and crazy and absurd; wanting to get closer to a complete stranger. It's comparable to blasting ourselves into the friendly skies and hoping we won't fall out of them. We fly all over the place, with our love passports in hand, hoping that the destination we reach is love. Or romance. Or good sex. But dating doesn't come with a parachute underneath your seat, or an inflatable life preserver. Dating is either smooth sailing, or plummeting to the ground at an alarming rate while desperately trying to slip the oxygen mask over your mouth. A life of lonely, solo train rides is sometimes appealing. But there is too much about flying that we just can't give up. The excitement you get when making a ticket purchase, the fun of deciding what to pack and what to leave behind, that butterfly feeling in your stomach when you lift off. When it's a good flight, you feel amazing. You're thousands of feet above reality with your head in the clouds, and nothing bad can touch you. You're secure in the arms of your lover, enjoying the in-flight entertainment, only worried about how to recline your chair. Sometimes you touch down in an exotic and lovely destination, other times you simply disembark and go your seperate ways. And then sometimes you crash land in the middle of the ocean and fight to keep your head above water. The fact of the matter is, you're more likely to get killed in a car accident on the ground then die in the air....or something like that. I've been flying all over the place lately. Vacationing in New York. Having business lunches in Iowa. And I've recently started making day trips to California, and Michigan. Despite my frequent flyer romance miles, I can't help but still feel that I left my heart in New York. Or rather, with my New York Sweetheart. I was so jet lagged this past weekend my brain still doesn't know what time it is, and my heart hasn't found it's normal rhythm yet either. I guess, for the time being, New York is more like a travel companion; because our destination keeps changing and becoming something new and something else. I can barely keep up, or afford the tickets. And since I can't rely on New York, I've been booking other flights left and right, trying to put emotional miles between me and the big apple of my heart. But, just like that fucking song says: I wanna be a part of it, New York. New York! I think I view New York as first class seat material, but in his book I'm just business class. Obviously, because of his "special someone" who he says is his copilot. But my passport has had "NY" stamped all over it recently, and I wasn't even booking the flights. Sometime soon I need to analyze my flight patterns, but for the time being I'm too jet lagged to think. Plus, New York is so hot in the summer. If you catch my drift. So, we continue to clutch our carry on bags to our chests hoping that the next ticket purchase will be our last. Not because we go down in a fiery ball of melted fuselage, but because we finally reach a destination that is worth throwing out our love passport for. Until then, enjoy the free peanuts.

"Hold me like you'll never let me go, cause I'm leaving on a jet plane." -J. Denver