Airports are my favourite place in the world - and the one I hate most

There’s something about airports that cracks me open. They’re both my favorite place in the world and the one I dread the most. A paradox in glass and steel, duty-free shops and delayed flights. They hold the highest highs, the lowest lows, and everything in between.

I love airports because they are full of desire. Raw, electric, unspoken desire. For something else. For someone. For freedom, reinvention, escape. You see it in the way people fidget with passports, the nervous laughter in security lines, the thousand-yard stares at departure boards. We’re all wanting something when we walk through those sliding doors.

But I hate them, too. Because the goodbye always hits harder than you expect. And no matter how good your trip is, there’s a certain ache in knowing you probably won’t be back there anytime soon (maybe ever). That beach you loved in Taghazout, Morocco. That smile you caught in Hoi An, Vietnam.

Airports remind me that holding on and letting go often happen at the same gate. You board the plane and suddenly, your whole world is 38,000 feet in the air… suspended… literally and emotionally. The turbulence isn’t just outside the window.

So yeah, I love airports. But I hate them too. 

 They’re places of infinite possibility… and quiet grief. They’re where people leave, and where people come back. However, they never really come back the same.

And maybe that’s the point.