Places you have to revisit are a good reminder of where you’ve been and where you are now. Places like the few good cafés and eateries in your town. Places like airports and bus stations. Places all versions of you have been, and touched, and spent time in.
Almost half a decade ago, I was at the same airport. I reckon I was waiting in the same chair. I hadn’t seen much of the big cities. I had only heard of the idea of loving someone more than yourself. My right leg didn’t have its usual buzzing pain, and I was not exhausted at all. I was excited that day.
I was going to meet someone who is still really important to me. The small-town boy didn’t have much acquaintance with airports. All of it was a new experience. In contrast, I am now tired of them. They are unnecessarily complex and annoying, quite like most people you meet in them: too full of themselves, too much to talk about nothing at all.
It’s not all bad though; I’m much calmer now. I’m not as sure of myself in all the right ways. In a lot of ways, I’m a rather simple person still. Quite like the boy who was here all those years ago. I still hold on to people and things where most would give up, I’m always willing to go the extra mile, and as much as I deny it, I’m still quick to give my heart away.
In all places where things begin and end, places like the tiny airport I’m currently in, some things always remain the same. In my case, it’s the pigeons causing a ruckus all over. One just passed by my foot and a baby cackled and laughed as the pigeon hopped. The man at the concessionaire, surprisingly, is the same. The coffee is the same; terrible.
In all things that are meant to change, like all things to ever exist, some parts never do. Perhaps, that’s how we recognise anything at all. As I sit here, I know everything has changed since the first time I sat here, and yet, I know, nothing has and nothing will.
The pigeons will still annoy the hell out of people who, in turn, will annoy the hell out of one another, and somewhere in between all that, some baby will laugh. And somewhere in between all that, I’ll write some words about nothing in particular.