CALIFORNIA BLOG - Entry 2

December 1, 2009
In high school, my best friend and I tried our for the same show choir. Molly knew a lot more about it than I did, because I was new to the school district. I think that's why her and I became friends in the first place; beside our shared obsession with getting involved in choir and theatre, Molly knew everybody and everything about everybody, or so it seemed to me.
We had to stay after school and wait for our time slot to learn the dance we'd have to perform at auditions. I'm as uncoordinated as a baby giraffe looks, so my nerves and worries were escalating every second as hopeful students with earlier time slots left the practice room feeling confident. Already putting myself down, I adopted Molly's nerves also. She wouldn't stop going on about other people she knew who were trying out, and how much more skilled and talented they were than she. Needless to say, she wasn't very encouraging company. Neither was the last girl to come out of the room before we went in. Still bubbly and bouncy from her overenthusiastic dance session, the girl's confidence made me cringe with immediate dislike. She introduced herself as Sarah, one of the "more talented" girls Molly had been worrying about for the past hour.
But by the end of the week, the three of us had been denied from show choir, the sequined, gauzy dresses never to adorn our eleventh grade bodies. We were also great friends.
Intimidation is useless.
I've been sitting in the airport in Columbus for thirty minutes. I was well prepared to go an hour before my brother dropped me off; I ran all my errands and packed my things this morning. It was a well-paced day. Yet, standing in the check in line with my carry-ons, rushing through security, speed-walking to gate B23 with my shoes still untied, I was anxious.
Why?
Airports are intimidating. They are big. It's almost like they shouldn't exist. Man wasn't meant to fly, yet he does. He does in huge, enormous aircrafts that are made out of aluminum. Aluminum. The same basic element we drink soda out of, and wrap our sandwiches in. Aluminum is associated with airplanes and food.
Airports are big. And even though I've flown before, I have never done so alone. I was a child up until recently, after all. Getting ahold of my boarding pass, making sure I got to the airport two hours before departure, knowing what line to stand in - all things I never worried about.
Why do they recommend we arrive two hours before departure? I think airports like to be intimidating. We think we're running out of time, but we're really not. We end up sitting at the gate eying the Starbucks down the hall for an hour and forty minutes before they even start boarding senior citizens.
The moral of the story is that airports and high school are a lot easier than some people would like you to believe.
I wonder if my grandfather has cleared out my grandma's medicine cabinet. I wonder how much of her will be missing.