Passacaglia for Staying Afloat

A stream of consciousness from an airport on loneliness, travel and maintaining relationships

I am currently waiting in the airport at Istanbul for my next flight to Delhi – I am going to India to attend my sister’s wedding – as I write this in my journal, which now feels like a waste of my resources because I just paid 6.5 EUR to be able to use the airport wifi for the next two hours. That price is absurd.

I have been anxious about this trip for a long time now, partly because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to rest. Back in Marseille, I have a paper submission deadline coming up in 5 weeks. This means that I will essentially be working overtime when I come back. I am still procrastinating on a few emails that I must reply to. But as long as I am not physically in Marseille, everything is free game. That is one French-ism that I have decided to adopt after living there for a couple of years now.

I arrived very early this morning at the Marseille airport and when I went to drop my baggage, the lady behind the counter said, “We saw your dedication to your travel and our airline and we would love to show our appreciation by upgrading you to first class. Do you accept this upgrade?”

“Of course! Thanks!”

The best thing about a first class flight is that there is a lot more leg space.

Everything said and done, I am very excited to go back to India. The best thing about going back to India is that I don’t feel lonely. One would think that in my third year living in France, I would start to have a social life – and I really did. It’s just that recently, it has taken a toll.

All the friends that I made here have left because they found opportunities in other cities or countries. And now I am left here having to make an effort to make new friends by myself. As a shy person, I have always relied on other people’s friendliness. I’ve never had to work on friendships, they’ve just happened. That seems to be changing now.

I recently made a friend at my office – a visiting researcher from Italy. It is hard making friends knowing that they won’t last. Every new person I meet just comes with a set of friends and a social life, which I lack, which is further isolating. My colleague will soon leave Marseille and I don’t know when/if I will meet him again. He invited me to lunch a few days ago and didn’t tell me that we would do it at his place because, “I knew if I told you, you would bring stuff and I didn’t want you to”. That was the last time I saw him.

We always say that we will stay in touch, and sometimes we do. But it fades out, which is normal. What I find abnormal is how people seem to be completely fine with it and are able to bounce back so fast. The weight of being forgotten is heavy, an insistent weight that nibbles at the edges of self-worth. It's the hollow ache that reverberates within laughter, the unspoken plea for acknowledgment veiled behind smiles. It feels like residing in the periphery, and to reside in the periphery is to weather a silent storm that erodes the essence of one's being.

I think flights have something to do with this. They always make me existential. I feel things that are inconvenient, emotions that linger like shadows in the dusk. It's like being a misplaced note in a symphony, a chord that resonates dissonantly amidst harmonious melodies. These feelings refuse to fit into the prescribed narratives, drifting like solitary ships in an ocean of conformity. It's like tracing the outline of a vanishing dream at the break of dawn. It feels like the gradual erosion of spirit, a dimming of brilliance as I traverse a landscape devoid of recognition.

For the next two weeks, I won’t have these problems. It is exciting. I am actually looking forward to going back to India, and enjoying my sister’s wedding. I am sure that we will have a lot of fun. It is possibly the biggest event of the year already, in her life, of course, but also in mine. It hasn’t hit me yet that marriage is actually a big deal. I think it will hit me once everything is finished. She is supposed to have a “small” wedding according to Indian standards which is still more than 700 guests throughout all the events. It will be hectic, but fun.