The Steadfast Heart

exulansis
n. the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it—whether through envy or pity or simple foreignness—which allows it to drift away from the rest of your life story, until the memory itself feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land.

Copyright John Koenig; The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/96261999250/exulansis

My mind has a tendency to feel a lot like the Atlanta airport. You might laugh at my specificity with the Hartsfield-Jackson airport, but to say I picture St. Louis’s Lambert or Chicago’s Midway just wouldn’t be true. The Atlanta airport feels peaceful and yet chaotic all in the same breath for me, like there are so many emotions to feel and not enough time to press into each one as it is rightfully owed. There are what seems to be a miles worth of moving walkways on either side of their massive hallways that should be classified as tunnels instead that will get you from one end a terminal to the next in a matter of minutes.

Even now, I can hear the sound of luggage wheels skidding onto the carpet before rolling back onto the metal ramp and its conveyor in the space between each walkway. There’s a certain rhythmic feeling, a specific pace that needs to be kept to stay in the flow of busy travelers. Each concourse has their own decorative vibe, my favorite being the dimly-lit stretch where you have to be careful not to miss a step from staring straight up at the lights. I get so mesmerized by the textured ceiling of color and the ambience that feels subdued and aquamarine.

While there is exhaustive noise from the shuffling of feet and a buzzing spirit of hurriedness, all I hear is silence while I’m lost in my own line of thoughts.

Life to me feels like everyone is hustling onto the moving walkways and I’m wandering my way in the in-between. On my own time, I’m carefully choosing to take the stairs. Not so much to avoid the congested elevators, but because I’ve never carried the sense that there is room for me on them. I don’t assume that people would think to make room for me if I were to ask.

And so I take the stairs. I stick to the far right of the hallway and allow others to pass. Sometimes I hold onto the hope that if I spend enough time sifting through the complexity of my feelings and ideas, I’ll be able to articulate them authentically if I’m ever asked. Offering them freely rarely feels rewarding. Instead, sharing my thoughts tends to feel like an inconvenience. Wrong timing. Things happening in the background. Minds failing to focus.

What I find to be important or eccentric to contemplate scarcely has the same effect on others. So I find my thoughts drifting through the Atlanta airport. I excuse the people I want to share my reflections with most of all with the idea that doing so would make them miss their next flight. Sure, I could give them the 5 minute version, but to simplify from the 30 minutes it may take to express the small stirrings inside of me would seem disingenuous.

Timing really is everything. I have a tendency to have the layover time while everyone else needs to get to Gate C.