[Was looking through a notebook I carried around this summer and found this entry]
Sitting in one of the many Heathrow departure lounges, I am yet another in a long line of luckily travellers who pause a moment to realize that, if they really wanted to, they could go nearly anywhere. The high barriers of travel: visas, time, money and responsibility – are easily surmounted by us privileged 20-something Americans (emerging adults?).
"Doha, Helsinki, back to Istanbul" Heathrow’s shiny departure boards offer as I eat my 3 pound Boots meal deal and wait for my gate to open. But I’m not heading off to travel somewhere, now I really do have constraints on my near future, and I’m flying back to Michigan.
Looking at the long list, I realized it is not only for holiday I could go to these places. Having done the expat thing in a string of countries now, I know that as a young, educated American, the only real constraints on where I can hang my hat is a real desire to hang it any place in particular. Of course I couldn’t really make the best living at the destination of each of these flights. But I could do it, if I really wanted to, and this seems a bit crushing actually, like choosing between 23 kinds of toothpaste.
Some subtle reminders that I’m in – and going back to – a different kind of place:
Despite a general conscientiousness about littering in London, my attempt to locate a bin at my gate to throw away the packaging of my new toothpaste was met with suspicion by nearly every employee on duty.
