Airports are always a scary, stressful place for me, ever since I had two seizures a few years ago. But with TSA pre and Cosmo, my continuous glucose monitoring system, I feel a little more comfortable about traveling the airways again.

And now that I’m single, traveling has become a second home. I am sitting on the floor near a wall outlet so I can charge my phone. I’m on my way to Iowa for a work conference, currently hanging out in Atlanta.

My aching ass and lower back keep reminding me I’m getting too old for this, but I will enjoy getting down and up from the floor as long as my body will allow. 

But minus the hypoglycemia anxieties, I also hate crowds, and airports have loads of them. I cringed when I boarded my flight in DC with a screaming baby behind me. 

Yet even though an airport seems like the last place I want to be, I actually really enjoy them. I enjoy feeling connected to a community of travelers and observing the many types of human interaction. I enjoy watching the planes land and closing my eyes beneath a mask of sunglasses during take-off. I have some of my weirdest, best dreams when I sleep on a plane.

I love the awful variety of airport food. I can’t feel bad for indulging because it’s all that I have. I love bringing my own reusable water bottle and not having to pay a ridiculous amount for bottled water which is basically bottled tap water.

For me it’s the idea that we all must interact and relate because we are all travelers in the same terminal. It’s hard to hate.

And while I was reading from my Kindle on the last flight, that same baby waddled past me with his mom towering over him. He grabbed my arm for support, then stopped, and looked at me with big blue eyes, soaking it all in. His mom said hi and moved him along, but I just smiled at those big blue eyes.

Even after they’d gone I could feel the imprint of where his tiny fingers had been.