Airport Music

I'm currently  sitting in the airport terminal of Houston, eating a stupidly expensive burrito, and wishing the wait were over. My perfect spot got bombarded by a mom and child, and I'm trying to drown my ears with music. 

The terminal, though, is also trying to drown us all in what it constitutes as the right noise, as though the blaring sound of humans were not enough. 

Fairly, it's nice music. It just also has a thousand voices yelling over it, which deafens the niceness. 

So I sit here, burrito and phone and earphones and try to some space for inner peace...and Ben Folds. 

Between the waves of songs, there's a little lull in which I can hear the world around me again. And, for a few seconds, I'm afraid I'll have to turn mine up louder. My brain soon focuses, though, and I am in my happy place again. 

The terminal did not quiet, my music didn't get louder, my brain chose which noise to hear. 

In my case, this is good. Tricking myself into believing I have a bubble keeps me calm in the business. However, I can't help but think about the way this is true of all times. 

We choose what we hear. We choose what we see. We guide and direct ourselves, train ourselves, to head in one direction over another. And, once we are patterned, it is hard to break your eyes and ears out of their set gaze. 

I met my husband twice. 

First day, first class of college. 

First day, last month of Belfast. 

My language here is important. We didn't reconnect. We re-met. 

In my mind, Julius appeared four times, and two of those he wasn't even there for. 

Seeing him at the bottom of the steps at a party and thinking how lost he looked (the night he met his first wife), talking to his "girlfriend", learning they were an item, and being totally shocked at the impossibility of that couple, wondering where he was our second year and Facebook stalking him with my roommate (only to discover he had moved away and gotten married to the girl), and seeing him at the bottom of a flight of steps in the student center the semester he returned to Arkansas and thinking how...foggy he looked. Not lost, just...muted. There wasn't an energy there. 

In actuality, he had existed a lot more actively. 

We were in a Leadership program together for a full year, we had overlapping friend circles, we were even in a group project together that first year. He had to show me the PowerPoint to prove it. I remembered the third member of our group, but not him. 

And a couple weeks ago, upon mentioning a game of jenga I had played with the campus chaplain my senior year, Julius said, "Yeah I remember. I was there." 

Shock all over. He had sat at a table with me and one other person for a good while, and I had no memory. 

I didn't see him. 

I was popular and driven and opinionated and clearly had my eyes and ears and heart set in a totally other direction. 

Joking not joking, our buddy Ogle once told me--right before he brought me Julius--that I was attracted to the wrong people for me. 

I can see now what he meant. When you spend your life searching in only one direction, you may deceive yourself the world is flat. 

He hadn't fit my script for what I believed my people were, so my brain erased him, as I'm sure it has so many other truly good, beautiful people, who I could have become so much better for knowing. 

Then Belfast happened to me. 

By the end of that year, all my scripts had been set on fire. 

Then, on my doorstep, a Julius. 

From the moment we met, there was a mutual understanding between us that I couldn't have twisted into existence by my own powers. It just was. 

In Julius, I had a surety that I couldn't explain, despite how broken we both were. 

Sometimes it's good to find your space in big loud places, but don't forget. What you thought was noise may be, hidden by only a few rows of people, notes from a grand piano and pianist alike. I was settling for a copy when a concerto sat before me. Sometimes, opening your ears is worth the inconvenience of connection with the uncomfortable and unknown.