The wait for my flight home (Spain) for Christmas has given me a chance to think. I write this from the different and changeable reality that is an airport.
The happy face of airports is seen on the travellers for leisure, people going on holidays, or reuniting with their friends and family. Their faces, filled with happiness, show their enthusiasm to set out on a long-awaited trip. For some of them, their trip is like a moment of freedom as they are on holidays, or a meeting with destiny which they have been looking forward to for a long time, packed with relaxation and leisure. Overall, a time to put their responsibilities and obligations to one side and to have a change of scenery. They arrive to the airport with a look of joy on their faces, thinking: “I’m finally going.” And they feel important because they are part of the group of people that are going to travel.
But an airport is also a place where some of the saddest moments are experienced. Often it becomes a scene of drawn-out goodbyes. The people who are saying goodbye cry, as do their hearts, and they hope that the moment to meet again will come around soon. The sadness of saying goodbye, the physical separation from a loved one that we know we will not see again soon and from whom we do not want to be separated from, is a hard truth for all of these people. And this will become my reality once the Christmas holidays are over. I will join all of those people that live far away from their loved ones and that inevitably have little time to hug them goodbye. The people who know that they will not be able to meet with their families again for several months.
How many times have I seen people crying at airports! Some cry because they are happy while others do so because they are sad. We all know those long hugs of reunion and farewell. For some people, the heart heals and for others, it breaks into pieces, and for everyone, the eyes become the mouth of the heart and tears the sincere words of the soul.
I will never forget the day that I left Madrid, Barajas, to move to Hungary. It was then that I truly understood the weight of my decision. A decision that would take me far away from my country, my family, my friends and my life in general for a long period of time, to start a new life in a strange country. That day I cried with my son and my wife, as everyone does, until I had no choice but to go through security. I will never forget that moment so filled with feelings which still affect me to this day.
Airports are one of the few places where people express their emotions and feelings without restraint or embarrassment. Arriving to the airport is like entering another dimension. It is a place reserved for people that come and go and that in many cases do not even belong to a particular part of the world. People that become more a memory than a reality, who can only be held in thoughts. Everyone is part of this ethereal world at some point, of this diverse whole of similar feelings. Often we are divided by language, memories, or our loved ones, but we are united by a our feelings and emotions and the language of the heart which we all share. We all belong to the wonderful, yet sometimes frightening, world of travellers.
Those of us that prepare to travel have a goal in mind: to reach our destination. For that reason, since I bought my ticket, the only thing I have wanted is to reach my goal of returning home after five months. I am fully aware that the goal of my trip is to gather strength and recharge my batteries so that I can go back to work with more enthusiasm and excitement. This is my goal, my destiny, which will always be to reunite with those people I love most: my family.
Set your goals and try to achieve them. Dream of doing so and you will succeed. If you do this, it is possible that one day your goal will coincide with your destiny. Be constant and determined when it comes to the thing you like most. Your efforts will be worthwhile and life will reward you with a path as fulfilling as destiny itself.
