On My Way Home

I was waiting in the longest airport line I’ve ever been in. Apparently, a minor plane crash had occurred at the Liberia airport, blocking the only runway for hours on end. I was surrounded by cranky, inconvenienced travelers. I was one.

The trip hadn’t been anything like I had hoped. My relationship had felt emotionally distant for several months, so I was looking forward to reconnecting in Costa Rica. Instead, the trip had brought out the worst in me. I was constantly asking for external validation, lapping up reassurance like my life depended on it.

I hated who I had become in the relationship lately, desperate for meaningful connection. At a low point, I told my partner how envious I was of a stray cat he had been adorably petting for half an hour. I was jealous of the attention paid to a cat who constantly meowed for food scraps. But needing to feel seen, I was also a beggar.

It had been a beautiful but difficult couple of weeks. The sticky air in the airport was hot and unmoving, just like the winding line. I started to get stressed about making my flight home. Standing in this line was one of the first times I had been on my own since coming here, and I started to relish my solitude even amidst the stress. 

But I wasn’t alone at all. The line started to move, and all the travelers started to wind up and down the roped-off rows. I started to take in the hundreds of faces passing me in patterned rotation. I felt my disposition start to soften.

I once read in a meditation guide that practicing mindfulness can help you experience bliss even in a traffic jam. Skeptical, the next time I experienced frustration on the road, I tried being more mindful. It helped, but I’d hardly call it bliss. But here, in this humid and clustered airport, I was bizarrely in a state of bliss.

I don’t know what started it, and I also find it hard to describe; other than that, it felt like I was tapped into my heart. I was aware of my impending boarding time and my discomfort, but none of that seemed to matter. It was so beautiful to be so connected to my own heart like this. It felt like tangible energy coursing through me: warm, expansive, radiating.

The more I imagined extending this orb of energy to the unknown faces around me, the more it grew. I knew intuitively that this love is unlimited. It cannot run out or be wasted, so I threw it at each person I passed in that parade of faces. I felt kindness and connection so visceral that I wondered if others could sense it, see it.

I’ve chosen to believe that this is how our hearts function all the time, but since it’s constant, we rarely pay attention to it, like how people who live in a home can never smell its scent. I was amazed at how content I felt. After a lifetime of clawing for love, I was starting to realize that I would never be without it because I am love—we all are.

At that moment, it’s as if years of hard-earned life lessons clicked into place. My cup, which had been empty for months, suddenly felt overflowing. I had been waiting for someone else to fill it that whole time; I had no idea I was capable of filling it myself.

They say nothing lasts forever, and I guess that’s especially true of a feeling as fickle as bliss. One second, I felt like I was levitating, at one with all of humanity. Then, I’m being asked for my passport and shoving bags through security machines, returning to “real life.” But I had brushed shoulders with insights that changed how I approached life. I couldn’t return to my old patterns, which was a painful gift.

I made my flight. Then, life shifted. Within a week, the relationship I had been desperate to preserve had imploded. In the chaos of heartbreak, I’ve often thought back to the peace I found misplaced in that long customs line. I’ve even tried to replicate my experience there.

I don’t know what it is about airports that does it for me, but the only other time I’ve felt it since was at the airport in Toronto. The customs line in Canada was–dare I say–even longer. An hour into waiting and only halfway through the line, I realized I wasn’t going to make my flight. I had never missed a flight before and started to feel my skin flush with anxiety. 

My stressed brain started to game-plan how to get to the front of the line faster, but I quickly realized it was out of my control now. The only thing left to do was accept that the flight was going to leave, and I wasn’t going to be on it.

I reminded myself that I had always figured things out before and would figure this out, too. I felt lucky not to have anywhere important to be and the resources to buy another ticket home if that’s what was required. Acceptance was instant medicine. My anxiety melted away into the same warm, expansive feeling I had felt in Costa Rica: bliss that lasted my entire travel day.

If I had to put words to the sensations I had in those airport lines, it would be “coming home.” Coming home, in the deepest sense, to yourself and what it means to be human. One day, I would love to have that feeling somewhere other than a stressful airport line. But the meaning isn’t lost on my sentimental heart; every time I’ve felt this feeling, I’ve always been on my way home.

Thank you to my friend Elizabeth Workman with Embr Films for helping me photograph this! We taped a mirror to my chest and caught the sun’s reflection to get the light burst. Well, attempted to.

Inspired by Rook Barber on TikTok – it was not as easy as you made it look, sir! haha

Before & After

Straight out of Camera

After Color Correction + Photoshop