treasury

Next week, I will travel by myself.  This will be my first time really traveling alone since I went to Japan in 2007.  Sure, I've ridden the bus and train a few times on my own since then, but my destination was always a person.  Aside from Japan, next week will be my only solo journey.

I'm fraught with anticipation over the trip.  Not so much what to do when I get there; that part is basically decided, by the nature of the conference I'm attending for work.  No, I'm more anxious about the flight -- it's only two hours, but a lot can happen in that time.

My flight back from Japan was in two parts.  The first was from Japan to Hawaii; the second, Hawaii to Philadelphia.  On the initial leg, I was somehow bumped up to first class, and I was able to experience that joy, likely for the only time in my life.  Spoiler alert:  it was a comfortable plane ride.  When I boarded, there was champagne and orange juice waiting at my seat.  I had a lot of leg room.  It was nice.  A sort of doofy Japanese guy sat next to me and spent most of the flight watching TV (after I showed him how to use the media system).  I could have chatted with him, but at that point in my life, I was pretty tired of speaking Japanese.

Sadly, I was back in coach (economy?) for the second half, though I was lucky enough, at first, to be given a couple of seats to myself.  Inevitably, though, about halfway through the 12-hour flight, there was some sort of commotion a few seats behind me, and a steward asked me if I'd mind moving my bag from the seat next to mine.  Of course I didn't, and the seat was soon filled with a cheerful but doofy teenage girl.

She wanted to chat, and told me a bit about herself, though I recall little of it; I think she was from Hawaii, but on her way to visit family near Philly.  I thought she was about 14 or 15 years old, from the way she spoke.  I can't remember why she'd had to move her seat; perhaps her initial one had broken, or maybe she got in a fight with her sister?  It's a haze to me now.

I had a book that I really wanted to read, but she couldn't take the hint, and kept drawing me back into conversation with her.  I started to realize that perhaps she was younger than I'd given her credit for -- I could tell that much of what I was saying was going over her head.  It's frustrating to talk when you know you aren't understood, but I soldiered on.  She seemed so hungry for conversation, and the book wasn't going anywhere.

After forty minutes or so of polite conversation, she revealed to me that, in truth, she often felt very sad and depressed, because her sisters were often so mean to her.  They were older, and liked to treat her cruelly, and exclude her, and make fun of her for all the things she was too young to understand.  Being pretty much cast in the mold of an older sibling myself, I couldn't relate much, but I did my best to speak kindly to her.

I only realized how young she was when, in a whisper, she confided that, when her mood had reached its darkest point, she would go up to her room, turn out the lights, and take out her Barbie dolls.  She would set them out, and one would be one sister, and one would be the other.  She would do her best to pick out clothes and accessories that would match her sister's styles, to make it as authentic as possible.  And then, she would explain very quietly and patiently to each what she had done wrong, all the ways she had failed as an older sister and a person.  She would force the dolls to sit there as she paraded her grievances before them.  She would air out all of her sorrows; she would indict them formally, she would issue a plea for justice.

When her list of woes was exhausted, she would take the part of the dolls, and act out their begging for forgiveness.  Speaking for each in turn, she would present the grandest of apologies, the most heartfelt confessions, and the most inspiring statements of love and promises of corrective action.  She would listen as they told her all about their plans to become the perfect older sisters.  She would have them tell her all the activities they would do together, all the fun games they would play, all the facts about life they would finally teach her, instead of ridiculing her for not knowing already.  She would hear all this, and then gather those two dolls up, and give them the biggest, most understanding hug.

Then, she would set them back down and pull their heads off; they deserved it, after all.  Having told me this, she lay her own head onto my shocked shoulder, and drifted off to a happy sleep.  I couldn't read my book comfortably, with one arm trapped, but I couldn't bring myself to wake her.  She was young but fierce, and I felt assured that she would find her own way, somehow.

She woke when we landed, and as we stood to get off the plane, I wished her luck.  She looked at me like I had said something very strange.  Before she could think of a response, she remembered her family in the back of the plane, and quickly skipped back to them.  Her sisters greeted her warmly, and they chatted happily, and I stepped off of the plane and met my future.