Sky High Sighs

WRITTEN BY FAITH FARRELL

I’m typing this in the dark (on my phone) on a red eye from Phoenix, Ariz., to Atlanta and I cannot stop with the sighing. I’m above the planet and my sleeve is damp with spilled airplane coffee that tastes like the smell of bandaids. The plane is full and I have to pee, but I’m by the window and the two people next to me are sleeping. The “Minnesotan Nice mixed with Southern Hospitality” in me dare not wake them up. No sighs of relief seem in sight.

This sighing phase crept up in my 20s with the passionate type of sigh that settles in after a particularly perfect meal. In my 30s? It was slipping out of my work boots. The 40s introduced me to the “take off my bra and free the boobs” sigh, concluding in my 50s when I discovered the extra audible and embarrassing sigh while urinating.

Mid-flight there will be a time zone change, which means I will time travel, skip an hour and celebrate my birthday while cinched in a seat belt. I mention this to the flight attendant in hopes of scoring a free birthday drink, but she still asks for my method of payment, thus inducing my last sigh of my past year.

Despite my full bladder, the flight is smooth and my anxiety is low, and I’m oddly comforted by the neon glow of my phone. There is an unspoken pact of trust when you board a metallic tube with wings speeding above the earth. And though you may not actually talk with your seatmates, there’s a bond, a sort of emotional handshake that seals the deal of respecting their (albeit) small space of privacy.

The older I get, the less chatty I am on a flight though a thousand questions swirl in my brain. “Why are they going where they’re going? Is it for vacation, work, a wedding or to say goodbye? And will someone they love be waiting for them when they land? Why did someone bring an egg salad sandwich to smell up the joint?”

Questions abound, scores of stories, secrets and potential movie scripts locked up inside every passenger, but do I dare to ask? I do know I dare to wonder about who I’m missing out on meeting.

To be frank, I wonder if someone is wondering about my backstory, but I doubt it as most of my fellow strangers are sleeping and I’m not that compelling of a character. I don’t have a complex pie chart on a computer nor am I donned in a colorful mumu or fancy suit.

Strangers lumber the aisles, silently (yet forgivingly) brushing against an arm or leg, so many sorrys uttered, yet so little connections made. These cramped quarters invite chaos, crumbs on armrests and spilled drinks on laps, commanding a Cirque Du Soleil contortion to retrieve a dropped phone. Considering it’s a sky high lottery of strangers hurtling above earth, we tend to behave. For the most part, we forgive more easily in the air.

Officially, it’s now my birthday, and as we make our descent, I hear a baby crying in the background. This newborn’s battle call charges my core. Cruising through the clouds and flying towards home, I exhale the first sigh of my birthday – knowing that on landing, someone I love will be waiting for me. And that I can finally pee. NCM