I had a layover in Las Vegas while en route to a 20 year old dream that’s lived and flourished and been chaotically watered in the webs of my circulation. I saw such a variety of human beings in this airport it was difficult to take my eyes off them, not that I ever would. But it drew me to a tear-filled place, neither sad nor happy or maybe honestly both, I’m not sure.

As I looked out the window from yet another airplane seat, floating through a sky full of stars, as though we could be deep in ocean depths instead of soaring high above it all, the reality of this fantastic existence hit me like a ton of bricks and quite quickly I grew ridiculously overwhelmed.  My eyes have gazed out windows thousands of feet above cities, trees, oceans, rivers, mountains, valleys since before I even knew what they were looking at. My eyes have seen the sickest of sick, and the wellest of well, the saddest of all among the happiest ones. My feet dangled from my mama through an airport before they had first scrunched their toes through the grass. Now, they have stumbled through more than 2 dozen countries, hundreds of cities… and yet it is in the plastic, crunchy, stiff with overuse and cleaning chemical airplane seats that draw me so deep into myself and my past experiences. The gratitude for all of it becomes the most present sensation, it is as if I inhale it, nothing but. Well perhaps heartache, yes. Gratitude oftentimes mingles with such an exquisitely vibrant ache, that to separate one from the other is deemed quite impossible.  But I rather much like that; I don’t mind it.  It’s one of the most true, honest, and complete feelings I’ve ever had, other than love.

So, while, I’m yet again drawn to the window high above a city I can’t see through the shine of the stars, I greet the ache and the gratitude with the widest arms.  I don’t want this existence without both.  And I’d rather spend months of my life above the clouds, clumped in airports with strangers, eating stale airplane food that makes my tummy bloated and achy, than to never see any of this world.  To miss all the eyes I’ve gazed into as they’ve gazed back.  It brings me the reassurance that this life is wildly imperfect, yet impeccably beautiful.  And I stand secure in that beauty is not without scars.  It is more the absence of perfection than the presence of it. Yes, I much prefer the discomfort coupled with the adventure to the comforts in normalcy of only ever gazing into the same eyes.