Reflections from a 19 Hour Layover

    I spent 19 hours straight in an airport recently. It was not originally planned that way, but my flight out of Nome was cancelled because of fog, of all things. You would think it would be a blizzard, but it was just some standard hazy weather that threw the entire plan off.  So, I eventually made it to the second stop, but had to wait those nineteen hours before catching my flight to the third stop. There's something about being an an airport that makes me feel like the world outside is detached and distant.
     At some point during the layover, I think of the children I left behind. I wonder if they are still struggling through that compass worksheet, the one that frustrates me to no end but made me laugh endlessly when in a halfhearted attempt to answer "Which direction is the school from your house?" one of them confidently replied, "Seven!" and then smiled proudly at me, hoping their humor would get them out of finding the right answer, and reminded me how much I love spending time with them even though I sometimes forget because my emotional energy is drained.
     I also think of my fellow Fellows that I will soon see, and wonder if they struggle with the same things I do, or if they are all expert missionaries and it's just me who doubts myself.
     This airport is neutral territory. It is a no-mans-land between the place where I will try to put into words all I have experienced over the past eight months and try to remind myself that I have nothing to prove to anyone about the validity or effectiveness of my work, and the place where I have been constantly attempting to live up to everyone else's expectations, a habit that I know is futile, but one I can't seem to break. I am a stranger to everyone except one other person in this airport, and it feels nice to have nothing to prove to anyone.
     In this airport, I read 78 pages of a book just for fun. Not a book I was assigned to read for spiritual growth, just a fun book that I chose on my own and will never have to discuss with anyone unless I want too. When I'm hungry, I go get something to eat. When shopping sounds good, I go shopping. When I am tired, I find a comfortable spot and go to sleep.
     The 19 hours pass slowly, and somehow too quickly. All too soon, it is time to board a plane and rejoin the outside world with all of it's demands. 19 hours will not be long enough to convince me to stop trying to meet the demands altogether, I would need a much longer retreat to convince myself of such a drastic concept. But those 19 hours reminded me of who I can be when I have no one to please, and that is a part of myself that it is nice to see again.

My view for much of the layover.