I’m happiest when I’m flying, suspended in the air.

I know a lot of people hate travel – or, they love the destination, but it’s the getting to the destination they find troublesome. TSA, long lines, cramped seats, little to no leg room for hours on end. The crying babies, the jerky train, the expensive meals ... the list goes on. And, yes, I’ve had my fair share of screaming babies, unfortunate middle seats, too much luggage, unexpected costs and a frequency of travel that has left my eyes bloodshot, skin dry and hair flat. I’ve felt uprooted and disconnected, forever flying away from some version of home.

But what I’ve come to realize, for me, is that traveling is home.

‘FOMO’ and the internet both help and hurt this. I am forever wanting to be where I cannot be. Supporting friends, laughing with friends, missing birthdays or other spontaneous celebrations, but, inevitably, travel also takes me home. To friends, to family or even, just to the adventure itself. Even work travel, with its meetings, hideous hotel stays, schedule and forced extroversion provides me with that sense of exploration. That ‘spark’.

I don’t know how to describe it. Its just a thrill I get by being in the air, being at the airport, near an airplane. The anticipation of going somewhere - anywhere. That sense of movement, of growth of change and something different. When I travel, even for only a short time, everything feels new again, fresh. A new routine in a new place. Finding your café or your local bar, the restaurant where you know the waiter. When I travel I become more of a regular and more known (ironically) more often than I do in my own neighborhood in New York. In New York I am forever trying new restaurants and bars and going to new places or new neighborhoods to visit friends. I’ve never had a bar near me, close enough, I could or wanted to call home. My curiosity for travel and discovery – even in my home city calls me to new things.

But, when I travel, I am often in a place for so little time, I lose the ability to explore it fully. I give up on the idea of seeing or doing it all. I prioritize, I find my favorites and I go there again and again.

A favorite café, a favorite bar – every morning and each evening. The result? By the time I leave I’ve created a community. A faux community perhaps, as I will be leaving, but a community none the less. One in which they know my name. I’m even friendlier to strangers when I travel – ironic, isn’t it? I have a new energy when I’m in a new place. An energy that allows me to withstand strangers, an energy that makes me less shy and more outgoing. Perhaps its because I’m not there permanently – if I make a fool of myself I won’t have to go back or see them again or have the potential for future embarrassment... it always makes me wonder, when I travel, if I truly belong ‘elsewhere’. But that is a problem, because chasing the thrill of the next and new can leave you shallow – rootless. Living in an ethereal place rather than a real existence. Not a true example of day to day living in that space or place, but a dreamland - one i've created for it during my brief time there. Which is why each new place feels to me like a place I can belong. Its false, but while I am there it feels real, like my whole existence could be there forever.

And then, I get on another plane.