I’m sitting on one of the incredibly uncomfortable waiting chairs at my flight’s gate in Boston’s Logan airport.  In my hand I am clutching my purse and at my feet are one of the three bags I packed that I know contain all I have in this world.  I’m scared shit-less.  For the first time in my life I’m holding a one-way ticket to a place I’ve never been.  A place I’m planning to make home, all so I can live with the man I’m in love with.  A man my age sits down across from me and initially ignores me, preferring to listen to something obnoxiously loud on his ipod.  I’m sure my eyes reveal all of my anxiety and my hands become sweaty.  The man across me leaves and makes a hand motion to me, silently asking me to keep an eye on his stuff.  I suppose I nod, but really, I’m so absorbed in everything bad that could happen to me when I land in Salt Lake City that I don’t even pay the slightest attention to the stuff the man across me left on his seat.  A few moments later, the man returns and is holding two ice cream cones: both vanilla with no frills.  He hands me one and says, “Ice cream will taste better than the acid I’m sure you’re churning up in your stomach.”  I murmur my thanks and am momentarily confused.  But the man across me picks up his things and moves away without another word, away from the gate and away from the concourse, leaving me with my sweaty palms and anxious eyes, holding a melting ice cream cone.  I don’t see the man across me again; he isn’t on my 20-passenger flight to the connecting airport in New York. 

He’s right about the ice cream.