Best laid plans
Friday, January 18. I fly from Chicago to Cincinnati with the knowledge that a massive storm is approaching the Midwest. I fly anyway, because I have a grad school audition. My flight goes smoothly. I dine on a bacon cheeseburger and cheap wine in my hotel room that night. I sleep.
Saturday, January 19. I check out of my hotel at 7:15 AM, because I will be at CCM until 3:30 PM. I ask them if I can stay another night if my flight back to Chicago is cancelled; they say yes.
I am in an information session for graduate applicants late that morning when my 7:48 PM flight to Chicago is cancelled. Mummy is watching diligently; she writes to me. I have been put on a flight at 8:30 AM tomorrow. She and I decide to switch to a flight that leaves at 2:27 PM, so that it'll be easier to get to the airport from my hotel. She emails me the boarding passes.
I play my audition. One of the professors invites applicants to his studio class that evening; I am exhausted and worried about the hotel, and I decide not to attend. I get an early dinner at a Chinese restaurant with some friends. I call my family. I sleep.
Sunday, January 20. I check out of my hotel around 10:45 AM. They call the airport shuttle for me; it arrives at 11:30. I arrive at the airport at noon exactly. Once through security, I eat lunch: Blaze Pizza. An employee thinks I'm a man, and I laugh because I've never known what it feels like to be misgendered as anything other than a woman, and I hate it but I love it at the same time.
I realize moments before the scheduled boarding time that my flight has been cancelled. I'm too numb to panic. I look for a United representative; Mummy phones their customer service. United has put me on a 7:48 PM flight. Mummy suggests that I buy tickets for a Southwest flight at 5:10 PM; the flight is not full, she says, and the gate agents confirm. Once I have the tickets for the Southwest flight, she asks for and receives a full refund from United.
I feel disgusting. Apart from my underwear, everything I am wearing is dirty. I didn't pack for two nights away. I just hope I don't stink so much that it makes others uncomfortable.
I thank the gate agents for their help; they thank me for my patience, and I tell them it's less exhausting for me to be patient. I am angry, but it's the kind of anger that sits low in my stomach and paralyzes me. This anger will help no one. Anyway, if I let myself be angry, people will be less likely to listen to me. And I'm not angry at the Southwest gate agents. I'm not even angry at any specific United employee. I'm angry at a void, and if I let myself be angry, it will suck me in until there's no more of me left.
Mummy thanks me for putting up with the situation. It's part of being a person, I want to say, it comes with the territory. Sometimes our lives are not under our control. I tell her that I didn't have much choice. I'm surprised that I didn't have a panic attack; I guess the depression won this time.
I realize that I need to cry and I can't. This is a familiar feeling to me. I don't particularly want to cry, but I know that it will be cathartic. I think about my monologue for this year's Vagina Monologues in which I talk about my tears being too much so I shoved them into my feet and now they can't climb back up to my eyes. I think about shoving myself into different shapes for the different groups of people who I see on a regular basis; I realize that I don't know which of these shapes, if any, is the real me. Maybe this is because I don't feel real.
My head pounds softly as I type this into the WordPress app on my phone. The pizza and water slosh in my stomach, jostling each other for room. The insteps of my feet hurt when I stretch them; I wish I could take my shoes off. My head sweats under the beanie. My armpits sweat into the T-shirt. My crotch sweats into my underwear. I would nap, but there isn't anywhere comfortable, and I'm scared I'd miss my flight. The audition has been the least stressful part of this trip.