last flight
“Should I even go?” I said, staring intently at the alert saying my return flight was canceled. I was standing by the door with my minimally-packed suitcase for my ten-day trip to Michigan to visit my parents. I had just been checking to make sure my flight was still leaving on time before heading off to the airport.
I looked around my itty bitty hutong studio apartment in the heart of Beijing, briefly wondering if I would be able to return at all. But of course, I would return. My underwear was hanging on the back of my bed, drying from the laundry I had done the previous day, but the apartment was otherwise spotless. Sentimental trinkets and art created by friends and family decorated the limited wall space. Surely the whole covid situation would blow over in a few weeks, and I’d be able to book a new flight back to this magical life I created. This little apartment was my dreamy nest.
“Just in case I can’t come back in a few weeks, can I leave you my key so you can water my plants?” I asked my relatively new boyfriend.
He said, “Of course,” then helped me wheel my suitcase through the narrow alley and loaded it onto his electric scooter to drive me to my waiting taxi on the nearest road wide enough for cars. After getting my suitcase into the cab, I stared at my boyfriend long and hard. We hadn’t even had “the talk,” so I don’t know if “boyfriend” was even the appropriate term, but he made me feel all kinds of ways, and my heart suddenly ached at the idea of not being able to see him again.
That isn’t the beginning of the story, but those moments have been burned into my mind as they seem to be the most definitively pivotal. How drastically different would my life be if I had decided to stay that day? If I had never boarded that flight back to Michigan?
I’m here now, eighteen months later, thirty weeks pregnant and covid-positive, weeping in quarantine. Not once in the last two years have I been where I expected to be the year before. I’ve experienced so much love and joy and transformation, but also so much fear and confusion. I feel absolutely numb to loss at this point.
But let’s go back a bit. How far back should I go? How much should I tell? Perhaps I’ll start by telling it all as honestly as possible. This is for myself to process, after all. I’m honestly embarrassed about my choices and actions in the beginning of the story, but I have made conscious choices to live and love better. Perhaps it is necessary to reveal the state of my living before in order to come to terms with how drastic my transformation has been.
I admit that I’m afraid to write it all down. I’m not ashamed of most of my actions, but there is a lot I wouldn’t want my mother to know and I suppose I must be fearful of judgment of some kind from someone. But I know I am living with integrity and genuine love now, so what should I fear? I almost wish I had to embellish the truth, but the truth is stranger than fiction and the last few years have been wild. I have no idea how long it will take to write out my memories of these years, but I’ve got at least a week of quarantine left to start my work on this, so we’ll see where it takes us.