I was standing out on the porch earlier and saw 2 commercial airliners when I looked up to do a cloud check. No clouds, just these 2 jumbo jets. Boy, that's a '70s thing to say, huh? "Jumbo jet". Anyway, I don't know what it was about today of all days, but I was able to almost put myself aboard one to have a look around. Here was a group of 170 people, mostly complete strangers, travelling from point A to point B. Some of them have frequent-flier miles, some had to scrape and scrounge to find the money for a one-way ticket. Some of them have been travelling between timezones so much that hours of the day are meaningless, some have never flown before.
For a few seconds, looking up at these jets, I realised that I am not alone. I might feel isolated occasionally, but for a little while, I felt like I was part of a society. This porch wasn't just a splintery assemblage of wood in the middle of a nameless cornfield; it was a part of a city whose larger boundaries could be seen by whoever was lucky enough to have a window-seat. My deck couldn't be seen from the window anymore than I could see the window from my deck, but I felt a moment of kinship with the exhausted person sitting there. This airliner was transmitting its presence to all the receivers, the fact of its existence logged in multiple computers, and the fact of its existence being verified was verifying my own. I live. I exist. I am here right now, looking up at this jet.
I often complain about how I just exist, I don't live. But, how many people up there— not only in this particular A320, but all the others in service right now— wish that they could have my life? The biggest thing I have to worry about is remembering to go for a stroll in the morning and the occasional doctor's appointment. Maybe someone aboard this very airliner is en route to their company's corporate HQ on the coast, giving a last-minute spit-shine to their quarterly report which is also doubling as their annual performance review. Maybe they tanked their last review because they didn't get enough sleep the night before and ended up saying, "Love you, 'bye", to their boss on the phone by sheer muscle memory, and this review is the deciding factor in whether they get demoted, lose their pay rise, and face foreclosure on their house. Maybe they had to charge their ticket to their credit card and they're about $25,000 in debt. Meanwhile, my greatest fear is being called "sir" despite wearing my most femme outfit in the medical transport cab.
The next time it feels like my problems are many and insurmountable, I should go outside and look up at the jets. Then maybe I'll realise, I'm fine actually.