Crazy Crap Item #15: The part where I ponder the meaning of certain preferences

In this time of rampant holiday travel, I've decided to resurrect some thoughts I had some time ago about my feelings on travel, espcially as the compare to Eamon's feelings on same:

They say opposites attract, and while I hate to rely on clichés, I think this one may hold true. At least, that’s my thinking after one year of marriage. Don’t get me wrong: My husband Eamon and I aren’t totally at odds. We share a lot in common. But we have one major difference of opinion that I think speaks volumes. My husband loves to go to the airport. I love the hospital.

This might seem like a trivial difference, maybe even an incidental one, but I’d contend it actually gets at the heart of who we are – and paradoxically, why we fit so well together. Let me explain.

Eamon loves to travel, but that’s only part of why he likes hanging out at O’Hare. More to the point is that he loves what the airport represents. For him, the airport is a place where anything is possible. It offers a million options, all readily available. Let’s say you go to drop a friend off for a flight to Florida. At a moment’s notice, you could join them, or maybe hop a plane to Rome instead. Granted, you’d better have some critical documentation and a lot of cash on hand, but the point is, you could do it. Bam! Rome. Bam! Rio. Bam! Seoul.

But there’s more to it than that. With a million options on hand, you have a million decisions to make. Play your cards right, and you could radically improve your situation. Arrive early, and you might be able to fly standby on an earlier flight. Got a few frequent flier miles? Try sweet talking the agent into upgrading you to first class.

The point is, at the airport, you live by your wits. You improvise. You optimize. You fend for yourself. And Eamon loves that.

Now let’s consider my favorite place: the hospital. You’re told when to arrive, what to bring, where to go. They know you’re coming. They’re ready for you. When you need to move about in the hospital – if you’re given that privilege – you are told precisely where you need to go. Sometimes, it’s made devastatingly simple. “Look down. See that blue line? Follow it to the surgical check-in desk.”

Frankly, I like that. I like being looked after, being assured that there’s a system in place that dictates where I need to be and when. I can relax at a hospital. Surgery won’t start without me.

In other words, it’s the total opposite of air travel. At an airport, I never feel like I can “leave the driving to them.” Consider my personal air-travel bugaboo: the connecting flight. You pay upfront to be able to get from point A to point B. The airline can’t do that, so they offer to take you from point A to point A1 to point B. To top it off, you’ll have precisely 20 minutes to change planes at point A1, even if you need to run all the way across the airport to do so. You paid for the trip, they know you’re there, but if you can’t make the connection, they will leave without you.

For someone like my husband, that’s life. There’ll be another plane along later. He trusts that, despite the chaos, he’ll manage. The airport simply gives him the opportunity to demonstrate his bravery, wit and confidence in the face of setbacks.

Me, I’m not so sanguine. They promised me a trip that I paid for in advance. They told me what time it would happen. They made it impossible for me to make it. They betrayed me.

But it’s really not the inconvenience that bothers me. Instead, it’s the greater existential crisis I find so troubling. At the airport, I’m reminded that the world is a slippery and undependable place. I do not get to be passive and trusting. I must fend for myself. I must watch my own back.

Which gets me back to how opposites attract. If I have to be at an airport, I want my husband with me. When he’s around, I don’t have to watch my back; he watches it for me. He doesn’t panic when the airport sets us adrift on the cruel currents of fate; he revels in the situation. He looks for opportunities to play the system and make our trip a little better, faster, more efficient. He creates a wee hospital for me within the big, scary world of the airport. But more importantly, demonstrates the fun of freefall, and helps build my confidence in my own resources.

And he benefits, too, from my hospital-like love of organizational systems. While I’m no freefall expert, I’m a whiz-bang at creating my own safe, autopilot world. It’s a trait Eamon has learned to value.

“Where are my socks?” he wails as he frantically dresses for work.

“I don’t know,” I reply. “I imagine they’re in the sock place.”

“There’s a sock place?”

I gently explain that there should always be a sock place, and if he hasn’t got a sock place, he should designate one immediately lest sock panic threaten again.

So that’s how our marriage works. True, we’re not always in the same place, but we can connect, and our connection is sustained and enriched by the vistas of opportunity we reveal to one another. Even if that vista is sometimes only a “sock place.”