I have traveled lots for business and pleasure over the last two decades.  At times, I traveled every single week for 4-5 day weeks on and off some of those years.  One time, I did that for 3 years straight!  Yes, it was crazy but I was young, ready to see the world, meet people, and get good work opportunities as a consultant in a large firm.

Mercifully, that has changed in the later years.  I have gone years without the weekly travel but occasional trips.  Now I am doing 3-4 day per week travel every other week.  Really easy.  I get to be home a lot and get to be in a city I really enjoy (Washington, D.C.) and that is much easier to get to than the 26 round trips I did in 2010 to go to Chile for work…

Last night before we had left the ground for my 8:30 PM flight to Reagan National, I sat in my first class seat (complimentary upgrade!! thanks, Delta!) looking outside as the plane began to pull away from the gate.  We were on the first gate in the middle of the T Concourse of Hartsfield airport so there was no gate next to us on my side of the plane, just empty space.  The lights were on around the tarmac; those yellow-like floodlights that are almost mood-altering.

The plane pulled back but stopped for a few short minutes.  And though an occasional luggage cart or ground crew member passed by, the place felt empty – an unfamiliar thing for me in this, one of the world’s largest and busiest airports.  Even the luggage cart or the ground crew member looked lonely.

As I looked out the window with the inside lights turned off as is customary for takeoff, I was disconnected from the passengers on the plane, like in my own private world.  And then I felt melancholy.  I felt I was alone looking at the world outside the window and that world looked calm.  Looked like everyone had gone home.  And here I was leaving home…  I wished I hadn’t been…  Those darn mood-altering floodlights…