Expectations

I thought it would be different. There are a number of people traveling to Austin on the 6:20 flight this morning, more than I imagined as I drove through Hartford at four and pictured myself alone and waiting quietly in the terminal.

The man across from me wears snakeskin boots, but I am certain he is not a Connecticut line-dancing cowboy. His skin is too leathered for such foolishness, too wrinkled with worry about the ranch, the cattle, the injuns. Or so I like to imagine. Perhaps I do that too often--judge books by covers and weave stories before I know the full truth.

At first glance, the cowboy seems gruff, but I catch a smile on his face when he waves to the little girl across from him as she asks a million questions.

"Is that our plane?"

"Can we go inside yet?"

"What if it crashes?"


She's asking the questions we would all ask if we were young and unfettered in our anxieties. To ask them out loud would be inappropriate, so we sit in quiet unease.

Her pointed finger leaves a mark on the frost-coated window. The radio station this morning said 27 degrees. My sister says it's 75 in Austin.

"Is that sock weather?" I asked her.

"Should I bring a jacket?"

"Jeans or shorts?"


It's hard to know what to expect when you're someplace else.

There is a hodge-podge of folks waiting here this morning, young students and older couples, corporate types, and that one character who stands out just enough that we all glance at him with suspicion from time to time. Some read books with necks tilted this way and that. A woman near me works on a crossword puzzle, while her daughter stares into a cell phone, its screen casting a zombie-white sheen across her face.

The man I saw in the food court earlier sits next to me. His hair is a bit thin at the top and I notice a hint of gray--he is about my age. He wears dress pants and a pale blue button down. Is he on business or traveling home for the holidays? I picture both and wonder.

His cologne is familiar, and I think of my lover yesterday, smiling down as I rested my head against his thigh. It was a broad smile that caught me off-guard, and I laughed as he pulled me towards him for a kiss.

It is the first time I have thought of him this morning and I think I miss him. I want to think I miss him.

Would this man in the button down have seen me off this morning?

Kissed me passionately as if we were parting forever?

Shooshed kindly at the tears I cry whenever I leave something familiar?


A line is forming now in this corner of the terminal. First class is boarding already, and the rest of us gather our things and wait, single file.

In line at the coffee shop last night, my friend turned to me and said, "You expect too much of people." My blush of surprise was as evident as if she'd slapped me across the face.

"You are very loving," she continued, "but you expect people to love you the same way in return. It disappoints you when they can't."

"I thought it would be different," I said with a half smile, then change the subject. "I hear it's 75 in Austin. Can you imagine?"