My Two-Cents: Layover Friends
Last weekend, I caught up with my old college roommates during a little slice of downtime before my flight out of Chicago. It worked out perfectly – well, almost. Completely perfect would’ve required our 4th roommate, Skyler’s, presence. But close to perfection looked like Mallory and Gabi training downtown that afternoon. Our reunion began with long-overdue hugs and I’ve-missed-yous on the corner of Dearborn and Washington. And my smile cemented ear-to-ear for the next several hours – through lunch, a bottle of champagne (we wanted to confirm we could still hang), and our frolicking around Millennium Park while we caught up about our first year of post-grad.
As I get older, the friends and family who once filled my everyday life drift into their own worlds. I move and make new friends — and when I come back, the ones from my first home are already on new adventures. Then I move again, return again, and find my second-home people spinning into their next chapters. My life has started to feel like a merry-go-round. We whirl in and out of each other’s orbits, catching flashes of new and old friends at haphazard speeds.
I could try to jump onto every passing horse, gripping tightly and inevitably losing my balance. Or I could learn to appreciate these unexpected moments for what they are: the best layovers.
I love a layover, as long as I have enough time for a Bloody Mary at the airport bar. This is solely because I am an airport bar enthusiast. I love the aura of that place. It exists in between states of time, where nothing feels real. Everyone is going in different directions, and that weird mix of dissolution and giddiness fills the air: partly self-medication for future flight (alcohol), partly prescribed medication for future flight (downers), and partly people like me who get excited for any socially acceptable reason to order a Bloody Mary on a Wednesday afternoon. But even that OTC cocktail prescription is only the second-best option for a layover. The first is a friend layover: getting to reconnect with someone from my own merry-go-round while they’re momentarily in my view line or commute radius. Often in tandem, yes, with a Bloody Mary.
As we get older, layovers stop feeling like inconveniences and start becoming convenient chances to reconnect. And spending a tiny amount of time with someone you used to spend a lot of time with feels like an airport tequila shot. Not well, the top-shelf stuff that goes down warm without a burn.
My friendship-layover in Chicago this weekend was spent roaming around downtown and ducking into the first restaurant with a happy hour sign. But when it was time for Gabi and Mallory to catch their train, and we said our goodbyes on the second floor of Aritzia on Washington Ave, it hit me: the location couldn’t have mattered less. We could’ve shared cold pizza next to a park garbage can (Greg-and-Rowley, Diary of a Wimpy Kid style) and I still would’ve had the best time.
A place is only as good as the people you know in it. It's the people who make the place. I’ve had Michelin-star meals sitting on the floor of my living room under questionable LED lights after staying out too late. I’ve heard the funniest jokes in the Hy-Vee stockroom. I’ve played Cards Against Humanity till 4am in dingy basements. When I think about these moments, I never think about the setting. I think about how it felt to be with the people in them.
And even with the looming pile of student debt, I feel rich because I’ve gotten to see and know and love people with my own two eyes. And hear their stories with my own two ears. How lucky are we to have people worth orbiting back to? How lucky are we to have layover friends? And even though we don’t get to see them every day, how lucky are we to have people to catch for a drink when they spin into our orbits for an afternoon. Friends and encounters that recalibrate us and stretch our perspective back out to its full width. A layover friendship flattens all the petty day-to-day worries. The email you forgot to answer, or the chore you’re avoiding, or the deadline you’re sprinting toward fades into the background for a brief moment. Friends from your larger orbit remind you, simply by existing in your line of sight for an afternoon, that you are living a bigger story than whatever little things might bog you down before getting on your flight. Layovers make the world feel small in the exact way that makes your life feel big again.
Happy Thanksgiving & don’t forget to tell your friends and family how thankful you are for them!!
Kate
