There I was, lounging in the airport. Preparing for my final trip to my home of thirteen years. Trembling at the thought of blank walls, cardboard boxes, and the memories that were. Not ready for the mental drainage of nostalgia. The relationships built, and the bad blood leftover, will simply be too much to process. In a struggle to resist the pessimistic outlook, I gaze into the rocky, smoggy skyline of Burbank. Having no idea the impact of my first dose of reality was about to hit me with a bullet train full of bricks. Suddenly, the crushing weight of a human being rumbles through my bench. I turn to see a middle aged woman on the heavier side sweating bullets. Her muffled gasps for oxygen fail to suffice forcing her to break covid protocols and remove her surgical face covering for the greater good. “Are you ok?” I ask her. “…uh… yes..im..I’m fine” she utters in an exasperated daze. Her fluttering eyelids and bobbing head suggested otherwise. I panicked to find some comforting way to communicate with her, but I am a person who overthinks fifteen second interactions with strangers so I managed to gag out “Uuuhh-gee-uhhh,…so what uhhh..”. I do not know what to say. She pats my shoulder with her limp arms insisting that she is fine while she sits at forty five degree angle with her eyes closed. In shock my mind wanders through memory lane and picks out an old episode of a childhood classic I like to call “The passage of time”. I remember a time when my mom’s hair was slightly darker and she would pat me on the shoulder and say “I’m fine, it may suck now and life might feel like it is unfair, but I still love you and nothing will change that” after I cried when I dropped her birthday cake face down on the floor. I was five. It was an accident. But my dad scolded me to make it painfully clear how bad I fucked up. His words not mine. Then I remember a time when my mom’s hair was greyer like more salt with less pepper kinda. She would pat me on the shoulder and say the same words to assure me through all the deaths of loved ones and relationships. I just hope to never see her repeat the phrase on her deathbed, let alone some airport far away from the cushy carpeted floors of a warm family homestead. One that has been lived in with stained carpets from clumsy hyper kids and young yet-to-be-potty-trained pups. But I can’t imagine what screeching pain would pierce the soul if someone received news that their mother or loved one had perished while traveling back to them. “What do you see right now?” I ask her in an effort to distract her and hopefully ease the tension. She whispered in an exhale “Seagulls. Little blue seagulls dancing in a blurry sky”. A strange hallucination which yields from my memories, a time when I thought I saw seagulls in my sunny backyard pool. Calm and Content as I could ever be. Turns out I had just been staring at the reflection of the sun in the blue water and started seeing little blue volitantes. The latin word for “eye floaters”. You know the ones you get from staring a little too long at a bright light? In a snap back to reality to desperately search for someone who worked at the Burbank airport who was not just another traveler. Neon green sleeveless coat, button down business shirt and khaki pants, this guy has got to work here. In a profoundly stupid manner, I obnoxiously attract attention to the situation by yelling “SIR! I think she needs help” only to reveal that he could not be of assistance. No matter. The employee who waves little lightsabers to direct traffic was apparently also the gate attendant, and thankfully was on break from waving planes through the port. I wave her over. She instantly calls an ambulance which arrives thirty seconds later via the airfield at which point eight or so medical evaluators check her blood pressure, temperature, and pre-existing conditions. Even after all this trouble, She still insists that she is fine and disregards all of their advice. She passed her condition off as having a “little too much to drink” after detailing the various prescribed medications in her system which was apparently having a heavyweight boxing match with the Alcy (UK term for alcohol). Following this whole ordeal, proving that she is a liability to the airline and clearly in need of medical attention or at least somewhere to lay down, she still insists that she’s fine and with the assistance of her friend, she boards the plane. I should have said more to her, who knows if she’s on her last lim or not. I could have possibly delivered her last words to her kin or the world or something less egotistical. Since there is nothing left I can do, I might as well be relieved that I would not have to bear the crushing weight of that much responsibility. Although it would have made for a more interesting conclusion. Instead I grind my teeth into powder in a stressed frenzy for an effort not to eavesdrop on the flight attendants debating on whether to let her travel. Thanks to the information gathered and provided by the medical evaluators, they eventually decided to escort her politely. She cooperated. She took short breaks between each step as she inched out of the plane. We made eye contact, but I cannot even be sure if she recognized me. But she was smiling. The hiss of airplane turbines drowns out the stale aura left in the cold dry isle. Desperate for escape, I peer through the window as we soar into the clouds and then I see it. Seagulls, dancing in the sky with a sort of sky blue hue to their underside. Only, they were flying too irregularly and high up to be seagulls. Once again, those dastardly vitreous floaters bestrike my eyes. Visual distortion caused by overexposure to sunlight or sometimes nerves. In this case it was both and they intertwined to sit me in a perfect bliss of neutrality. I was not necessarily excited, in fact in a sense I was mourning the event in a respectful silence like the rest of my fellow passengers. But I was optimistic about returning to my family and spending precious time with them in the final hours of our palm tree decorated house. On the edge of a cul de sac with little windows in the front for a dog to spy on mailmen and other intruders like cats and raccoons on our block. But I was also content to take the bad with the good. I was ready to experience whatever heavy handed memories, good or bad, that packing had in store for me. Ready to sift through the old dusty dvds and scratched up video game cartridges I forgot I used to love as a kid. Useless now, but for some reason I feel the need to keep them as decorations as if they somehow define who I am by being a part of my history. Which is how I feel about every pee covered tile of the bathroom or every square inch of rough rocky suncooked backyard. But I have to let it all go at some point, but it just seemed like too hectic of a time to do so. Watching the illusionary birds dance in the sky led me to a new level of relaxation. And in that moment I realized, she truly was fine. Sure she may have been etching closer to death, but then again, aren’t we all? She was content with the situation, and none of us could accept that she had come to terms with it. None of us will know how much time we have left on this earth, so there is no point in wasting time rejecting the mortality of things both animate and inanimate. Life is full of good and bad things and we need to learn to love them all because that’s what makes us who we are.