From Auckland To Los Angeles

Well, I've got a long flight behind me, a long layover and a long flight ahead. So I will warn you that my time has been spent and will probably be spent mostly blogging, so don't be surprised if you see multiple posts today or at least very long posts.

From Auckland to Los Angeles.

After my sobbing session through the whole airport in Auckland I managed to dry my tears while sitting down at the gates to board the plane. I was early, so I chose an isolated position in the corner to hide my swollen eyes and red cheeks. As the gate filled with people all excited in anticipation of boarding, a man came to sit next to me. He looked rather 'rough' but this isn't unusual for New Zealand men.

He smelt of cigarettes and beer. He turned to me after a minute or two.
"D'yasmerk?" he asked. I didn't understand what the hell he said but i kind of put two and two together.
"Smoke? No, I don't smoke, sorry". I replied.

I initially thought that would have been the end of the conversation, but surprisingly this was the beginning of a long one. His name was Emmett, a 42 year old Australian bush guy. He looked rough, smelled rough, dressed rough, spoke rough and acted rough. Don't get me wrong he was a nice guy and he really did cheer me up with his "G'day mate" attitude, but he did look like he was just wrestling some crocodiles a few minutes before. We spoke all the way till the plane was ready to board, mostly him talking about himself and his love for alcohol and sport while I just nodded and made tiny contributions here and there. He was a funny guy. He was definitely very friendly and he did enjoy chatting. As we boarded the plane, Emmett decided that he was going to ask the guy next to me to switch seats so he could sit next to me.

Now, I wasn't really sure where this was going, because I didn't think that I had made any great attempt to be overly chatty and interested in what he had to say, especially in my present pathetic disposition of heartbreak I hardly made any effort at all, but i guess there was something Emmett was keen on finding out.

I was in for a long flight I thought because it was a 12 hour journey and I was sitting next to a guy who chose to sit next to me when all i really wanted was to curl up and cry on my own.
The conversation between us went smoothly. He was an interesting guy, and he loved to talk about his accomplishments, carefree living and crazy encounters.
His present journey comprised of flying from Perth Australia to Auckland to LA to Newark to watch a boxing match and then head back to the airport at Newark to LA to Auckland to return to Perth Australia on the same day. His total journey was taking 4 days long and he was only spending 6 hours at his destination to watch a boxing match.
What a crazy bastard? Who wants to do that? Who even does that? He never gave me a satisfactory explanation beside "why not? Its boxing!".

This guy was bizarre and he obviously took a liking to chatting with me. Perhaps because of my great conversational skills (Not! I'm lacking in this area) or my great looks (Not! I look like an emaciated corpse in my current depressive state) or my wonderful personality (Not! I wasn't very engaging to be honest).  I cant say I know why he enjoyed chatting but he kept on chatting and I learnt all about his life in Australia, his wife, his dogs, his parrots, his lack of ability to have kids with his wife, his heroic moments of saving people's lives by performing CPR, his days as a security guard at a casino and his encounters with heroin addicts overdosing and dying. Let's just say, the guy loved to tell his stories.

I wasn't unhappy to hear his stories. In fact it was somewhat refreshing to have different conversation with somebody that wasn't related to my break up. I felt appreciation for this guy. He saved me from being a complete wreck the whole flight. I eventually was forced to tell him my sad story of breaking up (I tried to keep it brief), to which he replied "that guy is stupid to dump you".  It was nice to have a stranger say this to me, but at the same time it wasn't really comforting other than on a superficial level of being polite.

After a few hours on the flight, the conversation tapered off. I was glad because I did want to get some sleep. However, as I slowly fell asleep I thought about this encounter and what it revealed to me. It had very little to do with this Emmett guy but everything to do with me. It revealed things to me about myself. I am beginning to recognize that each encounter that I have with random people during this time is a reflection of myself and what I would like to work on within me. They are all mirrors. I see things about myself that I hadn't seen before. Some are good things and some are bad things, but I feel as though it is only now that I am in this position of being stripped down to this naked state that I can actually see these things about me. I never saw them before.

I am bare, transparent to the skeleton both physically and emotionally. Is this what it is all about? Is it only from this place of zero that you can really be sure to start solid foundation? I honestly don't know for sure, I'm still searching for my own answers amongst it all.

But I guess the point of pivoting from where I am now is "How am I going to build myself into the woman I always wanted to be?"