antecoitus

The heavens has a way of telling you to stop. I was supposed to have a full weekend which was supposed to start today; instead I am currently stuck here at the airport because I missed my flight. I had to repurchase a one-way ticket just so I can go back to p r a g u e. This means that I have to stay at the airport from the time of my flight which is at 1700h to the first flight from g d a n s k with a connection to p r a g u e which is at 0545am. My freaking taxi driver took a short cut or more apropos to say, what he thought was a short cut. I didn’t dare go back to the city because I know that hotels are fully booked. On Tuesday night I had to sleep at a sailors’ hotspot hotel, it had a sort of regatta-ish theme which was the only good thing about it because the whole hotel was stuck in the 70’s, the same decade they changed the furniture. Leaving the office at 1515h I was hoping to make it to the airport at 1545h. However my the taxi driver wanted to make it faster so instead we ended up in the middle of apparently rush hour traffic because it’s a Friday and everyone leaves the office earlier on a Friday. That’s e u r o p e for you. It took us an hour and a half instead, making me miss the check-in. The freaking check in woman suddenly became the most powerful woman in my world, but she knew no mercy. I was gritting my teeth the whole way from Gdynia, close to making the cab driver’s head bleed with my tiny phone which I suddenly wish was one of those early cell phone models that can be mistaken for walkie-talkies (o kaya panggayad ng yelo) for maximum effect. But he’s old, and old people have an unexplainable effect on me. They make me unreasonably merciful. Now, here I am waiting for the 12 hours to idly pass, hoping I can just close my eyes wake up and see an emaciated stewardess asking me if I will have a ham or a cheese sandwich. Worse, I’m wishing Hiro Nakamura was real and that if he were, he would give me a no strings attached invitation to bend the time-space continuum with him.

For the past couple of hours I have eaten my first meal of the day, beet root soup, sweet and sour chicken with rice (which was neither sweet nor sour) and a coke. I have bought gum and caramel candy , which cost me a mere 5 euros and for that I had to use my bank card because I had no Polish zlotys left (the store clerk was looking at me with humorous pity). I have bought an internet card from the same store after a couple of cigarettes outside the airport. I have watched 3 couples say goodbye sucking faces, 2 business men looking for electrical sockets for their laptops and one whole family dragging their bags to what is currently my most coveted place in the world, the check-in counter. I am leaving the time consuming activities for later which includes among others, writing about my current pitiful circumstances, working and reading a book. I have 10 bloody hours left.

The world has suddenly stopped and allowed me to think. I used to ask God for some time to just be left with my thoughts without having to worry about the next thing on my agenda.

Be careful what you wish for because God certainly has a sense of humor.

I keep thinking why this happened to me. I’m a good person, I use the magic words, I even wipe the toilet seat clean before I leave. Not that it’s a magnificent tragedy like, I don’t know — acquiring drug resistant tuberculosis. I only have one explanation though, when things are changing in your life, and for the better, you tend to forget to say thank you. To stop… even just to quickly say those two words.

After talking to W on the phone in shock and close to tears because it is the first time ever that I have missed a flight, and while hauling my 17 kilos of luggage, I saw the chapel (yes, they have one, this is p o l a n d, John Paul II was a citizen). God is subtly using a ploy to drag an ingrate into his house. Mystical and cheesy… how trite you say? How clichéd? I know, I thought that too, but who can say no to an open invitation to cry without anyone judging you? So I went inside and completed the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary.

After which, I surprisingly, started weeping.

I guess, I cried because I was exhausted, happy yes, but definitely worn out. I cried for my friends and my family whom I know will have aged when I come home in December and I have had no part in the forehead wrinkles they’ve developed from the moments when they needed someone to tell their story to, or the laugh lines which mark the jovial moments I could have shared with them. I cried again for having been pained before and for acting like it was alright that I was not able to say my piece to that one (and only) person who had to hear it. I cried for all the gifts that the man-in-charge gave me even if I never had to ask for them. I cried for all my weaknesses, for the times when I acted strong while my knees were buckling. I cried for the splendid experiences I have encountered.

I cried for my wonderful luck and for all the blessings that have disguised themselves so much I almost missed them. Like I almost did this one. I didn’t think I needed a good old bawling session with myself, but even this one He had to think for me. Can I be more inept?

Now that I am older, I end up with less and less time to be left in peace. When I was younger I used to have moments in church (especially in St Jude’s), my bedroom, or the UP s u n k e n  g a r d e n to feel incorporated into a bigger plan. Those moments provide you with ebbing feelings of being humbled by your triviality and of being big enough to fill a part of a grand design which ends in a perfectly harmonious exactness of imperfections. You feel like a soldier and a king at the same time, you follow and yet you decide. I get less and less of those moments now, because I am too busy with the mundane.

The more worldly you think you are the more green you have actually become.

After reducing a percentage of my body fluid, I wiped my tears and went out. I told myself, it could have been worse. I could have been in Prague now, oblivious to the fact that I failed to acknowledge the One who made someone insignificant like me be stuck in an airport in northern Poland because I was doing what I think will make a difference in my life and in other people’s. No matter how naive I am that what I do, actually will.

Tomorrow I will be partying, like a maniac. I have to look forward to that. I have to have something to look forward to. If only to rid myself of homeless-like feeling today. W just called me now, he told me to stop planning for tomorrow and jus try to be safe in the airport. How did Tom Hanks (do it in the Terminal)? Patience, I’m definitely learning that now. I have no choice.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 2:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.