On my international flight today, someone had a medical emergency. It was a flurry of cliches that happened right after. “Are there any doctors on board?” “Please help. He has very high blood pressure too.” “Does anyone have 4 AA batteries?” It was scary to witness. It is still ongoing as I am trying to focus myself and write something in this note to curb my own anxiety.
Not to be a sap but it just got me thinking about a lot of things… I thought about my day.
My mom, sister, and I were in Miami for a few days before my flight overseas. The night before, we went to the ocean. My mom told me not to take my phone but my dumbass did anyways. The waves fried the motherboard and my phone wouldn’t charge anymore. I waited until shops were open 10AM the next morning — a full 4 hours before I had to go to the airport for my flight. The iPhone repair guy said diagnostics could take an hour so I waited there. What else would I do without my phone??? He came back and said it’s not fixable in the time given (would take a day).
I was surprised I was still calm at that point. I had to get to the airport in 2 hours. And now I have to get a new iPhone. I walked to the Apple store and got a new phone in less than 30 minutes. Capitalism. Then I had an hour before I had to leave and it was a 30 min walk back to the Airbnb, where I still had to pack. It started pouring cause Miami. At that point I almost gave up lol. But then I thought…. Honestly, if this is the worst thing to happen to me today, I should really be grateful. Everything I actually care about is still here.
I thought about the movie I just semi-watched on the plane. Probably for the 100th time. The plane has those physical headphone jacks so I couldn’t actually listen to any sound. So I watched Encanto with no sound, subtitles on, and whenever it got to a song scene I’d fire up my Apple Music and match the video on the screen to the sound in my AirPods LOL. That shit was fun though. The dos oruguitas scenes always get to me. It’s beautiful. Even without any sound.
I thought about my family and my mom. How I unfairly projected my stress onto her earlier in the day. How she’s been nothing but kind and wonderful to me. How funny she is (apple doesn’t fall far from the tree). While I was waiting to board, my sister texted the group chat, “mom fell into the ocean.” Nothing for a whole minute. They FaceTimed me a minute later, all laughing. She just lost her balance in the water and got all wet.
I thought about the rush of flight attendants with various medical supplies, and at least 3 doctors on the flight, to the man in distress. Even after he got up and seemed to be standing fine there was a crowd of people helping. I’m glad he was fine. What I thought about was the zero hesitation people had when rushing to help. When I think about Encanto, my family, the Good Samaritans on the plane today — I’m reminded that a lot of the meaning of life is simply, other people.
I thought about Jay Pug! And Yoshi.
I thought about gratitude, as I try to think about that every single day. The one thing I keep coming back to was this random encounter in Brooklyn in 2019. I was walking. I stopped to sit on a random stoop. Some poor guy was heading out of that apartment building to go to work when he asked me what was wrong or if I was ok. I told him what had happened earlier that summer. We talked about things that I don’t remember. What I do remember is him saying at the end, something like, “those rocks and this bagel and that bench are not sentient. Isn’t it beautiful that he got a life to begin with?” I am grateful for that.
I thought about the last time I was in Europe. It was with Jacob in the summer of 2018. I just got a new phone right before the trip, the same phone that perished today. We saw many sunsets in the balkans. I remember at one I was trying to get the perfect picture…of the fucking sun lol. Jacob turned to me and said, “can we just be?” I don’t really think it hit me until just now. These places and things and new phones and destinations will always be here. We can almost always get a new thing or go back to somewhere we loved. It’s the people we can’t.
I’m reminded that very soon I’ll be seeing some friends, a few I haven’t seen in years! I’m reminded that I’m truly very lucky to have people who I can count on. A family I can go home to. A lifetime to make new connections. And finally — 2 boo boos who are probably licking their paws as we speak and will frantically lick my face when I come home with those same mouths. Life is good, especially when we appreciate the bad things that happen as well.
And On this vacation, I will just be.
P.S. I thought about my friend who I reconnected with today! She was telling me how she was rocking a Nokia phone for a while. I thought — would it really be so bad if I didn’t have a smartphone for a while? It’s a sad paradox that I feel we have to be disconnected in order to feel connected to other people, to the world, to any semblance of peace?!??! That is to be determined, one day, hopefully.
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EDIT: the man is not fine and we stopped in Halifax so he could be seen by doctors on the ground.
