Airports are memory time capsules

I picked someone up at the local airport yesterday and as I walked through the place I remembered every other time I'd been there. They were almost exclusively good memories. Business trips (I like my job so they were good memories), vacations, going with an old girlfriend to visit her hometown. Some of these memories go back 15-20 years, and the place hasn't changed much so it could have all happened yesterday or last week. I've changed cars, changed clothes, changed houses a couple times. I have very little that I had a decade ago. But entering the airport was like stepping back in time.

Right here, this wall was where Victoria and I sat on the floor with our luggage and waited a couple hours because our flight to San Francisco was delayed. If I could step through the veil and go back in time to that moment, I would never stop kissing her. Fuck the flight.

Here's where Victoria and I waited for her mother to join us for Christmas, the first and only Christmas I shared with a completely different family than the one I grew up with.

Over here, this ticket counter is where four business associates and I collected our tickets. It was the largest group of friends I ever flew with. It's a lot of fun (and was very foreign to me) to fly with an entire row of people I knew. We laughed and talked the entire trip to LA.

Here, this information counter, this is where I waited before flying out to Chicago for the first time. It was a wonderful week long vacation.

Outgoing flights are almost always fun and adventurous. Coming back you're usually tired and burned out and not looking forward to getting back to work. But the times I remembered last night were all those moments just before setting out to a strange place for a fun adventure.