Day 1: Part II: We're on time.

11:30 a.m.

The man beside me reads nothing but the sports section in the newspaper, meaning he is my least favorite phylum of male. But I love him still. He’s delightfully silent, uninteresting and furthermore uninterested. He can go down as a happy memory in my voyage.

So, I’m gone. Immediately upon finding my seat, Elizabeth Gilbert and I opened up conversation. The attendants’ and captains’ routine announcements were background noise to our chatter. I paused only to hear the throttle of the engine rev and release.

Always, in every flight I’ve ever taken, I think of Pa. No matter where he is in time or space, he’s always next to me in a flight, giving me lessons on the sources of an airplane’s grumbles, like a doctor teaching biology from a cadaver to eager students.

The pilot taxis us down the runway while Elizabeth explains something to me in her book. The plane stalls and I stall to listen to us leave Earth’s grips.

“The captain,” Pa says, “is releasing the breaks and pushing the throttle forward – listen, you can hear it in the engine. That ‘zzzzzzz’ sound.” Together we listen to it, and the wheels spin as the sound intensifies. Inertia forces me to relax and recline into my seat as we speed down the runway.

“We’re going about 200 miles per hour. And he pulls the nose slightly up – up – and we’re off!” This is Pa’s passion. He could listen to this all day and appreciate the beautiful intricacies of an airplane’s engine.

I pick up conversation with Liz again. But before I let her recommence, I glance once at the geometric shapes in the window. And then I don’t look back again.

And that’s because I’m still waiting for this to be real.

I thought about it on my way up here: I’ll never be the same after this. I’ll never know life, nor myself, as I did before. This is what I’ve been waiting for – this unknown and unpredictable change. Not that I am unhappy with who I am, but that the journey to find who I can be is thrilling and wonderful – it’s the very worth of living -- and it's happening now. There’s nothing mundane about the days to come.

To travel is to become a child again. You pass through the atmosphere, and your brain turns to youthful mush, something so easily shaped and molded, yet with the purposeful retention or omission of an adult’s. An impression is going to be made.

This is it. I am on an exploratory journey for my own potential, or perhaps even my own fulfillment. This is the ripest age in my life yet – the era of teetering at the cliff’s edge. Will I fall into the open mouth of adulthood – where rocks knock you unconscious, and where waters take you to some pre-determined place? Salvation from such banal existence requires a strong mix of desperation and determination. The American dream of pretty homes and nice, cute families is, to me, the Bermuda Triangle.

I would rather fly than drop like a stone into such a fate.

It isn’t just a matter of preference, though. It is a matter of bravery. Because for some reason, it seems you can only sprout wings if you can force yourself to jump.

College has lain down the plank.