![]() During our time as Augustana swimmers and divers, we show up because we want to. Sure, maybe in high school we had to rely on our parents or guardians to drag us out of bed, encouraging us to keep showing up, but that only lasts for long. As part of that commitment, we decided to pour our shared passion for swimming and diving into one team. For one, when we were all scared, confused teenagers (and maybe some of us still are), we chose to commit our next chapter to Augustana University. However, there are a few essential things that bind us all. We notice only what we need to see, what we need to hear. We take away different lessons from shared experiences. But my experience most likely didn’t change or impact me in the exact same way it changed or impacted my teammates. I wonder if the familiarity will feel the same now that I’ve seen the world through a new lens.Īfter 18 full days in Costa Rica, I know for a fact that I’m not the same person I was when I left. ![]() I’ll step out of something completely foreign and into something I’ve known my entire life. I thought about how I entered in the rainforest, in the tropics, and I’ll exit on the prairie in a blizzard. So, in the San José airport today, I began to think about the concept of airports. I may know where they came from and where they’re going, but I’ll never understand how they changed between their arrival and departure.Īirports also offer a lot of time for reflection, a way to waste time before stepping onto a flying human invention and stepping off into a city or state or country thousands of miles away. Most of all, as I watch new beginnings and bittersweet endings, hellos and goodbyes unravel before my eyes, I like that I can only guess these strangers’ stories. I like watching simple acts of human kindness: how complete strangers help each other fumble for their passports, shove oversized luggage into overhead bins, or navigate the stressful security lines while beltless and shoeless. I like understanding how people act under pressure, how they respond to their own vulnerability. I like pretending I’m looking through a viewfinder as faces of all shapes, colors, and moods click past me, faces I’ll most likely never see again. ![]() I don’t like any of those things, either.īut I do like what airports symbolize. There are a lot of things about these painfully human places of transit that are easy to dislike, easy to be annoyed by-the sterile smell, the delays and long layovers, the endless lines and noisy crowds. ![]()
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