Flying Solo

Angelica has traveled on airplanes ever since she was a child, she was always used to traveling with her parents or with a flight attendant because she was under the age of traveling alone. In the summer of 2017, when she was 16 she had to travel alone for the first time due because her father traveled weeks before her because she was still attending school. Angelica understood and didn’t mind it at all, until the day of her flight.

When the day of her flight arrived she was excited, she wanted the time to pass by faster. When it was 7 pm her mother makes sure Angelica has everything packed and helps her weigh her bags in order not to run into issues at check-in. She made sure Angelica had her identification and luggage locks. Angelica was somewhat annoyed by this because she has been prepared since that morning. After having everything in order  Angelica orders an uber for them to go to the airport. Although her flight was at 12 am, her mother formed the habit of arriving at the airport hours prior to her flight. Angelica gets the notification that the Uber is 3 minutes away and tells her mom “let’s start bringing the luggage downstairs the uber is 3 minutes away”. They both step out of the apartment carrying a suitcase and carry it downstairs. By the time they get to the first floor they see that Uber has arrived. they proceed to step out of the apartment and the Uber driver helps them both to put the luggage in the trunk. Before heading into the car Angelica sees the sun setting behind her and inhales the cool summer air and gets in the car. Angelica puts her earphones in and plays music for the whole 50-minute drive while her mom talks with a family member on the phone.

Angelica and her mother arrive at the airport, they take the luggage out of the uber and walk into the airport to and finds the airline shes flying for check-in. Angelica looks around and notices that theirs a lot of people and notices that theirs a short line for the airline she’s flying. Her mom tells her that we got there at the right time and Angelica agrees. When it was their time to get to check-in, Angelica gave her passport and her luggage to the worker and she was set. 

Then Angelica and her mother walked to security, in order for her to go to her gate. Angelica and her mother then hear a phone ring, it was her mothers and she answered. Before saying their goodbyes Angelica started to become nervous, she started to get this weird feeling that something bad was going to happen. While her mother was talking to someone she gives Angelica a hug and tells her to take care. It made Angelica more nervous for some reason, she thought to herself what if that’s the last time she sees her. As Angelica walks to the end of security her head began to ache a little, that is what her body does when she’s about to cry. Her eyes filled with tears but she was able to control them. When she arrives to the front of the line she hands her passport to the man who checks them and as he hands it back to her in a shaky voice she said: “Thank you”. Angelica then proceeds to take off her boots, her backpack passes security with no issues She looks down and remembers that her shirt says “see you in hell” in mandarin with a skeleton with its thumbs-up, it made Angelica more anxious.

As she arrives at the gate where her flight is going to take off. She thinks to herself, she wonders if that’s the correct gate paranoid that she’s going to miss her flight. More and more thoughts piled onto her head, she was shaky and looked around to see if anyone was looking. Luckily no one was. She tried to calm herself down so she gets her phone from her backpack, she notices that its 10 pm, she calls her friends through skype so she can shift her focus. Luckily, her friends answered. 5 minutes into the call she tells them “ I feel as if I’m going to die, like as if I manifested something bad because of the shirt I’m wearing, the way I said goodbye to my mother, what if this was my last time seeing her and I didn’t get a proper goodbye.” Talking to them helped her settle down and continued to speak to them as the gate waiting area fills up and until her flight began to board people.