Just one more plane ride and it's done

...at least for the rest of this year

4 years of Flight 109...wow. How fitting that it is celebrated on a day which I spend at both of my homes, flying from Tampa back home to Wisconsin. An awful lot has happened in the 4 years since I started this blog because blogging was more popular back then. Back in the pre-facebook era.

I just went back and looked at my only other anniversary post, which was on the 1-year Flight 109 anniversary. For whatever reason, other than that year and the first, December has served as an absolute graveyard for Flight 109 posts, not even being touched in the other years of the ol' 109. But I guess that changes today.

Wow, was the 1-year anniversary post depressing. I mean seriously...cheer up, former me. Back then, I thought my social problems were SUCH a big deal and everyone needed to cheer me up. How wrong I was on all the things I thought...truth was, I just was missing out on the important stuff. Looking back, I had an enormous net of friend support...maybe not quite as good as now, but even then when I was feeling sorry for myself for not having a niche, there were an awful lot of people who really cared for me and showed it. Thanks, guys.

And the thing that got me so down in the first place? A girl. Of course. I have no explanation whatsoever for what got me so enamored with my locker buddy. We were pretty good friends, sure, but I talk to her now (rarely) and I feel nothing in particular. But for whatever reason, hoo boy, I had my heart set on her and myself completely convinced that she was the only person for me. I feel pretty dumb now for thinking that, but now at least I can just look back and laugh. And I often do, seeing that the person I hated most in that overdramatic drama is now my best friend.

But, man, up till then I had never felt that way about anyone, so it effectively dominated my sophomore year...which I look back on and that makes me mad at myself, but all's well that ends well, right? I did a lot of growing.

And that was when Eisenhower began to be established too...good stuff. Katie was the basis of more than a couple Eisenhower songs...well, actually, just a couple, but one was Seattle, so it's a pretty big deal. So it's funny that while that song continues to live on and defines my very status as a musician, I no longer have even a semblance of a feeling for the subject (not to mention that I moved to the East Coast, but not Virginia...and I really didn't leave to escape any pain. But I will remain in Wisconsin, after all. "Fort Atkinson life?" haha. Gotta admit though, I still think the Pacific/Atlantic blue eyes bit was kinda clever.). But the point is that Eisenhower, even by way of the emo song that every high schooler is required to write at some point (Homecoming), was a big, big help during an otherwise worthless year.

I want to digress a bit to talk about some of Eisenhower's songs. There's literally like...1 Eisenhower song that remains even half-relevant to anyone in the band. There are a total of, let's see...I had to go back and calculate this...6 or 7 girls who can claim full or partial inspiration to an Eisenhower song (yeah, because I'm sure they're gonna put that on their resumes...). And only about 2 of them are still close to any of us. And they’re in the same song.

All that goes to show is that we all progress and grow a lot, which was more or less what I had been getting at with this entire anniversary (blogiversary?) post.

I love how in that one-year anniversary post I comment on how much I had changed over the past year. While I’m sure I did, it doesn’t seem like it looking back. At least not compared to now – then I was 13 going on 14 and didn’t understand a thing about life, social and otherwise. Now I’m 10 days from 18…and I still don’t really understand anything about life, but at least I realize that now.

I’ve done and experienced a lot since then. I started a band, I got a job, I got a drivers license, I graduated high school, I lived on my own for 4 months, and I experienced my first relationship in its entirety. Now I’m frighteningly close to being an adult (in age and in responsibility), something that seems so far away from where I was when I started Flight 109. But 4 years is a long time, and I’m thankful they went the way they did. Life in Wisconsin got good enough to come back for…and to have that at any stage in your life is something to be thankful for. I’m still in limbo in a lot of ways, but I have somewhere to come home to. And coming home I am.

And that’s an entirely literal statement. I’m actually on the plane right now. I think we just flew over Atlanta…or some other big city with a large domed stadium that is between Tampa and Milwaukee but closer to Tampa. Being that ATL fits those parameters and most other cities don’t, that’s probably what it was.

The airport experience was once again rocking. Nice work, Tampa International. And I didn’t hear the Brooklyn accent lady this time, but the questionable fellow who talks about “beautiful children” was at it again. I guess that’s proof that it wasn’t a joke and that he’s just sort of creepy. The Tampa airport is now synonymous to blogging for me. A lot of this was written in terminal A.

I love having the window seat. The views are so amazing (and distracting, for that matter). For instance, we were flying over completely clear skies the entire time, but now that we’re in…probably southern Tennessee, there’s impenetrable cloud cover as far as the eye can see in every direction. How that could be the case when the rest of the Southeast was sunny is beyond me. And clouds look so much cooler from up here too, especially when the sun is setting, which is another advantage of this great Tampa to Milwaukee flight – it runs once a day at 3:32, which is perfect timing for the sun to be setting during the flight. So beautiful. There’s a warm orange glow over seemingly endless miles of puffy cotton...sometimes I just love flying. And I very rarely hate it. It completely tires me out, but I find the experience enjoyable. It’s a chance to listen to my music, maybe get some rest, enjoy some great views, and hey, I don’t mind a Sprite and some crummy little airplane pretzels now and then. Of course, the flights back home are always better…so I guess a lot depends on the context too.

And boy, am I ready to be home. The last couple of weeks have been a grind. That really long paper was the bane of my existence for the week I was writing it. In hindsight, of course I could have not put it off to one week, but I’m reasonably proud of myself for doing it over the course of a week instead of waiting for the last night or something. I’m not so sure I could write 15 pages in a night, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I could do 8 in one night, seeing that the longest paper I had done until that point was 5 pages.

The moon just came up over the horizon, and it’s huge and orange and I think full. So cool. I’m like a little kid with how much I am astounded by airplane rides. But I digest.

If the paper had been about something really interesting, I probably would have liked it more, but at least the sources were plentiful. I mean, I wouldn’t even want to read a 15 page paper on the 2008 election…much less write one. And if I was getting a good grade in that class, it wouldn’t have caused me so much anxiety. While C’s get degrees, B’s don’t get you into really good grad schools, so I was hoping this paper could bring me up from my between a B and B+ range. And I still don’t know. That professor likes to torture his students by waiting until the very last minute to post grades. And by giving them 15 page papers, for that matter.

The moon is big, bright and round now on my right, and the sun is in its closing stages and creating brilliant colors on my left. This is so picturesque. I want to make it my desktop, but I don’t have a camera…plus it’s panoramic and can’t be done justice by photos anyway. You’re all so jealous. Come fly with me sometime.

But while I was hating my life over my 3.4-ish at midterms, I managed to pull myself up to a somewhat more respectable 3.7 range, by my estimation. We’ll see once I get all my final grades, but I feel a lot better about that second number. And I’d like to add that I always hated grade perfectionists in high school, so I feel ridiculous now, but for some reason, paying lots of money to go to school for two more years is a very important goal for me, and that’s a lot easier to do the better the grades you have. I don’t know how bad those grades will matter once I transfer, but if nothing else, it proves to me that I’m starting to develop a work ethic that matches my potential. There were a lot of nights that I really dug deep, and I’m proud of myself for that. I was such a screw-off in high school. I realize that most people were, but I’m glad that I proved to myself that I am capable of actually working hard. I’m going to need that in the years to come.

But as for now, I am a college student flying home to take a break. I will fill my cup and live it up and catch up with friends. There is a time and place to worry about all those things in the future, but I am not an adult just yet. I’ve got a solid base, I’ve got a bright future, and for the first time in months, I have 3 weeks to go to holiday reunion bashes and just enjoy myself without worry. I’m so excited.