Boston to Shanghai, three roundtrips a year. You’ve become so accustomed to this routine that you seldom think about how you cross the continents since only the departure and destination seem to matter. Still, there’s no easy travel. The long, tedious, and sometimes unbearable sixteen hours in the air across the Pacific Ocean always lie in between. There are no alternatives, no hypothetical elevator connecting China and the US through the earth’s core like you always joke about with your friends, nor a speed-up button like when you watch YouTube. You live through every second of that sixteen-hour plane ride in an enclosed economy-class cabin—it is a required transition you cannot escape.

“Buckle up please!”

The flight attendant walks around and reminds you every time before departure. 

You glance at the singular belt of gray leather—you doubt its effectiveness in keeping you safe other than restricting your movement. Stretch your legs until they touch the limits: it’s normal to bump into the metal footrest at the bottom of the front-row seat before your legs fully extend. At your back is the uncomfortable vertical chair, the headrest standing at an awkward height that can neither support your neck nor your head. Curl up your spine to fit in. Your left arm touches the cold stiff wall and your right arm almost touches the passenger to your right.

You’re stuck, in between. In a box that can barely hold you head to toe. In a box with no extra space at the front, back, left, or right. Even the scent, a disgusting smell of moist and mechanical oil, permeates every corner of the cabin and traps you in an intangible cage.

Airplane mode: important.

You are always taught to turn it on since your parents have a whole story of all the horrible consequences that will occur otherwise. As soon as the airplane mode icon turns orange, your phone will seclude all outside signals, and so will your body, mind, and spirit. Without any disturbance, you let your mind roam in outer space as the plane takes off into literal outer space: think about your friends and predict what they’re doing, think about the possibility of the plane crashing and what you will say for your last words (move on quickly though because it’s quite ominous), think about possible challenges in the new semester and how to dodge your parents’ phone calls despite those promises to keep in touch that you made during the late-night deep talks with them over break…

No one is here to see through your mind, no one is here to judge. 

Heavy loads of comfortable thoughts mixed with uncomfortable thoughts often put you to sleep, but it’s okay because you finally killed three hours of your endless time. 

Arrival in eight hours—

While the whole cabin of passengers seems to be put to rest, a few bright TV screens located at the back of the front seats inform you that you are not alone in the darkness. You just woke up from the soreness in your spine, and, out of curiosity, you open the flight tracker on the screen to see how much travel time there is left. You find the plane icon stuck in the middle of the travel projectile and a line of subtitles saying “Arrival: 8h”. You are eight hours from your departure and eight hours from getting to the destination—eight plus eight is sixteen. It is also a time when you usually find your fingers pointlessly scrolling through the movie menu bar but not feeling inclined to watch anything, when a sudden urge of emptiness rages through your mind. Even though you try to occupy yourself with idea after idea, there comes a time when thinking is too much to bear. Your mind roams in between invisible walls: no matter how far you go left or right you can’t see a trickle of hope for a destination. The soreness from your neck reminds you that physically you are stuck too. This enclosed cabin in space drags you down and you blame this feeling of in-between—you desperately need something concrete to grab on, to feel arrival, to feel grounded.

International flights always arrive at midnight, you know that.

When your tired body finally drags three half-human-sized suitcases up the stairs, the overwhelming silence of the 2-am terminal soaks you into yet another void. You’ve finally landed, you think to yourself. This is supposed to be the end, that destination you’ve been yearning for. Just sit down or lie down or touch the ground—do anything you can to feel grounded, please. You almost beg yourself to feel in place, to feel belonging because concrete ground should make you feel this way. It shouldn’t be too hard, but this tremendous empty terminal building feels too strange to be home. 

You’re stuck, in between. This is probably the sixteenth time you’ve thought that today, so you contemplate and reflect on this weird feeling that keeps coming back at you no matter where you are. Between the highs and lows of turbulence, between the emptiness in the air and the excitement to land, between the pain that lingers from the awfully designed seat, between America and China, Boston and Shanghai: no physical place can promise you the feeling of arrival.

Flashback: “What does home mean to you?”

The third time you had to answer that question during your international student orientation, your usual answer, Shanghai, got stuck at the tip of your tongue. The pink teddy bear bedroom wallpaper and forgotten dolls whose hair has grown shabby since you never combed them again seem to only live in your memories. Bits and pieces about Shanghai slowly fade into oblivion since you left after sixth grade—it no longer feels like home. Then, should home be somewhere in Massachusetts, somewhere that absorbs your tears during midnight break-downs and rejoices in your happiness and achievements, even though you never owned the same bedroom for over a year?

Home became a rather fluid and abstract idea. The more you grow up, the more you realize the world twists and twirls so rapidly you can no longer rely on one concrete place to be home. Even people change in the most unpredictable ways, so sometimes you come down to a scary thought that you are all on your own. 

When you try to land at any temporary destination, plane rides exist in between margins of places, and thoughts exist in between margins of conclusions—they are required transitions you cannot escape. Maybe it’s not too bad! You pat yourself on the back standing at the automatic door of the terminal building as you deeply inhale a big breath of fresh air. When you struggle to find a destination in bricks and walls, at least there exists a cabin away from Earth for your mind to think, rest, and wander off with no limits. The answer may not lie in a destination: you can find peace somewhere in between.