2001-08-30 - 12:58 a.m.
I've developed a new aversion lately. Airports. No, not the flying, although I've always found plane rides too tiring, too intrusive, and far too dehydrating. I'm talking about sending people off at the airport. I've always hated it.
Send-offs have been particularly painful for me- I remember sobbing the whole seven hours on my SIN-MEL flight some 4 years ago. I had left behind my family, friends (most of whom are no longer called so, a story deserving of one journal entry on its own), and a whole gamut of tangibles(leaving me with immaterial nostalgia). Then there was the time I sent a then-boyfriend off to South Africa. He took with him my hopes and heart,left behind his fidelity, and trashed my entire edifice of what I believed to be love. Bugger. More recently, I sent a dear friend off on his flight to what he was so sure was doomsday. I cried the night before, cried at the airport, cried on the way back to the car, and sobbed all the way back home. It is indeed seldom that a friend has such an impact.
So when I woke on the morning of Monday, 27th August, at the ungodly time of 0700hours, I sat in bed dreading the day's events. Another friend was going, someone with whom I had spent loads of time lately. Time talking about random trivia, time policing the streets for fashion offenders, time finding me a partner. And as we approached the Melbourne Airport at 109km/h, the occasional silence was dense-packed with profound reluctance. Our good bye was quick enough, thank god. I wanted it to be more of a see-ya. The best way to make things less painful is to trivialise them: It's ONLY for a couple of months, I'll be busy anyway, it's a matter of necessity, blah.
But I will miss you, and I'll be seeing you soon enough. Promise.
