not normally an over sharer
Current mood: tired
Some things I wrote en route back to the states and since returning (hopefully it's intelligible):
En Route to LA, somewhere over the Pacific:
A guy tried to be my friend (or maybe just friendly) at the Skytower in Auckland in the morning of the day I was set to depart New Zealand. I small talked but wasn't interested in talking about Nelson, Queenstown or Wellington. Or how to buy a car and sell one in New Zealand. Or how to find work here. Or the best places to visit on the North and South Islands.
I wasn't even interested in conversation when he said he was from Austria but lives in Zurich though I lived there once too and on a normal day would use any opportunity to speak a bit of German. Maybe I wasn't interested because I'm from the states and live in NZ. And I had too much whirling in my own head to pay attention to what he was saying.
I'm on a flight to LA.
I thought I was ready to go, and I think I am.
But it's hard to say goodbye to this experience that's solely mine. I was at the airport and everything seemed normal; I was fine. All of the sudden I was at the gate for my flight and I heard all these crass American accents. I know I have one too, but when it's taken out of context, out of the US, it's tamer, different. I was getting on a plane to be just one of them again. American.
I listened to the Americans speak and I knew right away I was judging them for simply being American. For speaking in the same accent as me and for speaking about New Zealand to each other so casually. For being on a flight back to the states. I started to cry for (as it seemed) no reason at all in a room full of strangers, inconsolable. We boarded and the plane started to take off and all of the sudden we were in the clouds already, New Zealand fading out of sight so quickly, unfairly.
Sunset at take-off was grand (and sunset upon arriving in Dallas would be too, but I didn't know that yet), and now I'm going back. Back to what I know in Texas until Wednesday when I board yet another plane to California for another new beginning. I might just be getting good at those.
LA airport:
American accents are all around and I know as soon as I step into my father's arms all of the NZ experiences will seem so foreign and as if it were all a dream.
White tennis shoes, sweatpants or matching tracksuits, clad with Starbucks and Burger King, these accents are strong and somehow now seem foreign to me. I know I'm judging them but momentarily it's okay because it's part of adjusting back to the reality I came from. Maybe it's not judgment, maybe it's just observing, amazement, at this place and these people who have become foreign to me but from which I came.
I sat next to a father- type guy from Alabama on the plane with a thick Southern accent and also the kind of Southern hospitality that makes you speak more than just superficial niceties to strangers in airplanes. Listening to him sounded like home and I remembered what I liked about the U.S.
Dallas:
The 17th of February is finally coming to an end.. I'm at home in Dallas and it's feeling really good. Left New Zealand on Sunday February 17th at 7:40pm and finally arrived in Dallas at 8:15pm Sunday February 17th. So- I guess it's kind of like I only lost about half an hour. Sure seemed like more though.
Cried a lot at the airport and sunk into my father's arms for as long as it took.
Stomach was bouncing as I stepped off the plane.
Went straight to a Tex-Mex restaurant from the airport with my whole family and it was one of my more delicious meals as of late.
NZ was not a dream; it was fabulous.
The morning after I arrived I went downstairs to go for breakfast with my parents and my stepmom said "you know it's about 37 degrees outside right?" She spoke in fahrenheit and I was in a tank top. It was the end of a Texas winter; I didn't need much else.
So- am home to free soda refills, hands under the table during dinner, the toilet flushing the other way around, temperature in Fahrenheit, and driving on the right side of the road where everything looks so familiar… in a suburban! But only for a few days…
California:
I'm in California (again) now, just three days after returning to the country, to embark on something else that is sure to be an adventure.
While in Dallas my brother said to me something like "It's a shame you couldn't have more time to adjust before hopping into something else," and my sister Vanessa answered for me, "It's how she rolls Coyt."
It's how I roll.
And life is good.
