I was talking to my other flight attendant in the back of our galley at midnight last night, flying somewhere over Nowhere, OR.
"You know, I love late night flying, because psychology states that the more tired you are the more truthful you are." She stated after sharing a small bit about her life and how she ended up here.
This one sentence, had us talking for another fifteen minutes. About how something we miss from the non-flight world, is the routine company of co-workers, friends at work, and daily interactions. Familiarity. Coziness. Friendship. How, when, something is hard in your life or your having a rough day, or if you want to know if you have spinach in your teeth without being embarrassed you can simply talk to someone you're familiar and cozy with. In our job, everyone is new to us. Each co-worker, each passenger, each barista, each taxi driver....they are all new, all different and all in the "hello my name is" stage of life.
In our usual day we talk to over, typically, two or three hundred people. We greet them, ask how their day is going, talk about their trip that they are going to or coming from, the children or parents waiting on the other side of security when we land, or sometimes the excitement or even the trauma of the last few days.
All day we talk. All day we listen. All day we serve. However, I don't talk all day. I don't really say how my day is. I don't say that I'm working eighteen hours and getting paid for six, or that I teared up the last flight because someone in first class was coming home from burying his father, or that a couple that had just gotten married made my whole day by being on my flight. I don't say those things, because the people coming on to our planes, they don't want to know about my day, they want to tell me about their day. That's part of why I'm here, in this job, because I like to listen, I want to hear the unique stories passing through my doors from all over.
But at the end of the day, after talking all day, do you know what I want to do? I want to talk with someone that I know, someone that knows me. I want to tell them about my day, I want to hear about theirs. Because in a sea of people all day long, I want to feel known by someone at the end of the day.
Which is why my co-worker and I were so happy to be having a real conversation in the back galley, past midnight, together. It's so rare you are, and feel comfortable enough to be, completely honest and raw with people you just met.
My point is, you can talk all day long like me, but you know the moment that is real, when you feel everything in your being release, because you talk to your person, or maybe you had a few moments alone to pray, or you see your 'group' that makes you feel known, and you know for a fact you've been heard and understood in this crazy and always moving world. And sometimes in my job I go a few days, a week, at max a few weeks (on the dreaded 135 credit months), of not getting that connection with my people. We all do.
This past year of my life I've often looked at as being so challenging, so difficult and so different from what I ever wanted. And even though those things are true, for the first time in too long, I'm looking at these things that are challenging, and new, and hard for me--and I'm actually able to see the good that's coming from it, the growth that's breaking through. In one flight I was able to feel the release, with a stranger/friend/co-worker, that I haven't felt this year about this aspect of my job. That I cherish the moments all day that I get to be that release for people, and that hopefully I am that for someone, just one person would be enough. But also that, I am so grateful for those in my life that are there for my release; those people that make me feel known and that let me know them.