Go With the Flow

"You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it." 

Paulo Coelho, from The Alchemist

Airports are strange little universes; sealed-off worlds where time stretches and folds in on itself, where everything smells faintly of pretzels and hundreds of individual journeys briefly overlap. The morning I left for Washington, D.C. for CBYX’s pre-departure orientation, I imagined my last day with my family starting with a more emotional, final goodbye. Instead, and to my surprise, I had barely hugged my brother before being swept into security, gone before I could look back. 

The current of the security line caught me faster than I’d expected; navigating the rapids of the airport’s terminals was overwhelming and immediately disorienting. Then came the waiting… the dragging, clock-watching waiting. My 9am flight was delayed; first by a few minutes, then hours, until it was 5pm and I was supposed to have been in D.C. hours ago. A broken door kept us grounded, and by late afternoon I had a feeling that the flight might not leave at all - I’d have to find another way to D.C. That turned out to be its own adventure, as finding a gate agent proved to be much more difficult than I expected. It wasn’t until I’d speedwalked through multiple terminals, under the runways, and into a completely different wing of the airport before I found someone who could change my flight. Once I got there, thankfully, the rebooking was fairly painless, and we even managed to get my checked bag onto my new flight in time for takeoff. I was back in the current, flying forward again. 

By the time I arrived in D.C., night had settled itself onto the city like a cloak of muggy air. My luggage took its sweet time finding its way to the claim belt, and I was the very last person to step out into the night. After hours adrift in the airport’s stream of travellers, finally stepping outside felt like reaching calmer waters. My hair products had exploded in my suitcase, and we had missed the group dinner. Even though I’d only been gone for a day, I felt worlds away from my home - like a lone fish navigating a vast new river. 

I learned quickly that I wasn’t the only CBYX student who felt like I was swimming upstream. My roommate’s suitcase had literally collapsed in the middle of the airport floor right before their flight, forcing them to buy a new one on the spot just to check their luggage in time! I learned that each of us had arrived with their own background and stories, frayed and colourful, yet together they intertwined into a rope of positivity - the lifeline of our cohort. We laughed at the chaos and swam forward together, on our way to our new homes. 

As we settled into orientation, the broken plane doors and blown-up suitcases had already landed in the category of “stories we’ll be laughing at for years”. It didn’t feel discouraging, it made the first few days of our CBYX experience more memorable. If we could handle these challenges on day one, there would be no doubt that we would be okay going forward. There are lots of unknowns for us - some don’t have host families yet, others have already been shifted around from place to place, but if there’s one thing we all have in common, it’s adaptability. We know how to swim, and we’re ready to hit the water.