Airport Goodbye

Samosa left yesterday to fly home to the States. Initially I had planned on returning to my internship that afternoon. We discussed the idea that I'd put him in a taxi to the airport and then myself grab a bus to the office. It sounds a bit heartless I know. How could I not be there for as long as airport security would permit me? I felt a bit guilty about it and I also had a lot of pent-up I-have-missed-one-week-already-I-NEED-to-go-back-to-my-internship-NOW energy.

I called my supervisors that morning. I told them I was feeling better and was ready to start. They said, "That's nice. But, please, please, get some confirmation from a doctor that you indeed are better. Get some x-rays done. Make sure the pneumonia is gone.

Hmmm. They had a point. The locations I was working in and some of the places I'd be eventually visiting (i.e. kiddie prison) weren't exactly the healthiest spots to hang out in. If I was weak and still highly susceptible, chances were good I'd just get sick again.

So I said, "Ok, I'll do that." Of course, I didn't really know how I'd do that, but I'd deal with logistics later.

Now I had a free pass to take my boyfriend to the airport. I had been feeling kind of bad about not going with him. Here was a way to go and not feel about about not going to the internship either. Seeing as they weren't actually letting me come back to work yet.

Not that I'm any good at goodbyes. And neither is Samosa necessarily. Suffice it to say we were sad and made silly jokes to cover up some of it. And found them funnier than usual. I felt like crying. I remembered fellow classmate's post about a visit from her boyfriend where she's interning in Tanzania.

In some ways I think there are some existential questions that arise during moments like this: when you're utterly involved and immersed in something temporary but saying goodbye to someone permanent. They run the simple lines of what am I doing? Where am I supposed to be? I'm happy to be here in Brazil and excited to be at this internship. At the same time saying goodbye to my boyfriend at the airport makes me feel as though it's not real. Of course, I imagine that when I do return to Austin, Texas in a few months that it won't feel quite real at first either.

And so, I waited outside security while Samosa went through. The groovy but slightly dangerous-looking owl sculpture that he'd bought at the Brique da Redenção caused some consternation when it showed up in the scanner. I could see various hand gestures as the security guard and Samosa tried to communicate despite language barriers. I could see Samosa having to unpack the entire backpack and unwrap the owl and the security guards examining it. I wished I could be there to help out with translation. But in the end, they let him re-pack and go on his way.

I gave him a questioning thumb's up. He returned it. Phew. All okay. We waved goodbye and blew each other kisses and waved goodbye some more. Then he disappeared to find his gate. I didn't feel quite ready to hop on a bus back to my neighborhood, so I wandered up to the third floor of the airport. Turns out it was a mall, complete with cinema, cafes and restaurants, clothing stores, a post office and a number of banks. Wow. It was surreal, especially the cinema part. And amusing considering my prior musings. I figured it was a good time to buy stamps for the postcards we'd written.

The sweet lady in the post office chose the prettiest stamps for me, ones with colorful birds adorning them. They had no adhesive on the back though. And I watched as she patiently ripped out two stamps at a time along their perforated images. She brushed glue across them and carefully pasted them onto each of the seven postcards.

I thanked her and slowly made my way back down to the ground floor. I walked outside the airport and crossed a lane of cars picking up loved ones. I stood against a concrete column waiting for the T5 bus to arrive.