Many would see this as just another transportation hub, a terminal no different from any other international airport in the world, but to me, she has been, and still is, more than just a place where planes taxi, take off and land.
For many a year, whenever times come that I find myself helpless, hopeless, frightened, uncertain and afraid, it is to her terminals that I turn to for refuge, for solitude, for hope.
Much of it lies in the fact that there is always movement in this space. Never has it been that the airport halls are deathly silent with nary a soul. No, there is always someone. If there is not a person at the check-in counter, there is someone at the row of chairs. If there is not a person stepping through the glass doors of the terminal, there is someone standing around near the check in counter waiting for it to open. There is always a person. At any one time, by day or by night, there has never been a time when the lights are off, when the flight board is not rolling, or when there is no one moving around. Even in the quiet of the graveyard night, there is someone, always, pushing a lone suitcase, or stretched out at the 24-hour cafés somewhere.
Here I could get lost in the crowd. Here I could sit by myself at any seat, clutch my backpack to me, so happen to have a troubled look on my face, and I'd still be left alone. No well meaning person would come up asking how I were because simply no one would care. And if I shed a few tears, no problem, no cause for alarm, because hey, this is the airport and at any airport anywhere there will be tears.
More than being able to be left alone amongst the crowds was seeing the giant departure board in the Departure Hall. On more pleasant days the board might have gone ignored, but in times like these, the continuous rolling of flight information served me a reminder that at this very moment someone was waiting at their boarding gate, boarding pass and passport in hand, ready to board the plane.
It was a reminder to me that even though at this very moment I was trapped in my circle of s*** feeling downright depressed and miserable, wondering why all this c*** was happening to me, and not knowing how to get out of it, behind those glass gates were people coming and leaving the country.
They had nothing to do with me, yes, but more than them being people, they were circles, and as I stood there helpless and lost in my circle of s***, these very circles were happening, these very circles were taking place, right at this very moment. and I was there.
I was being connected.
I was being connected to a circle in Singapore Airlines or Korean Air or Emirates or ANA. I was being connected to a circle on Thai Airways or Air India or KLM or United or British Airways. And those circles were going to elsewhere, other cities, other cultures, other climates, other worlds, other circles.
The World was Revolving.
And if everything was cyclical, it meant that soon it would be my turn.
When, and how, I didn't know, but one day, it would come my turn where I'd be the one entering the gates, getting my passport chopped, going through to the transit hallway, turning back, waving to loved ones, waving to the country maybe, and then making my way to wherever my gate was to board the plane that would take me to places where new experiences awaited.
If they could come here, and if they could go there, then so could I. If the world was where they had a place, then so had I. No one said I had to be confined. No one ruled that I had to be imprisoned in the circumstances and the situation.
Sure, the crap was overwhelming, the helplessness was more than I could bear, and I was damn tired of everything... but here at the airport, however I felt, however long I stayed there, the other circles were revolving around their own spheres like those spin-around cups at the amusement park, and soon one of those circles would be mine.
After all, the world was waiting, and so was I.