It’s really strange to me that I’m traveling now so much for work.

Why?

Well, throughout my childhood, my father always traveled for business. As a trainer for HP, it’s been his career to visit different groups of new hires for the company (and Compaq before that and DEC before that… lots of acquisition) and so he spent a lot of time flying. He still holds the same role today, and he’s constantly traveling, or at least he was the last time I spoke to him, which was quite a while ago.

Yes, for those of you who aren’t aware, I haven’t spoken to my father in quite some time. This is for various reasons I won’t get into here, because they’re not 100% relevant to the discussion.

What is relevant, however, is that now, every time I travel, I think of my dad. It’s so strange since we haven’t spoken, but as far as I know he’s still living in New Jersey, so when I set foot into EWR, our local airport, I always wonder if I’m going to run into him. Or if I’ll see him in whatever place I’m going. Or if I should even let him know that I’m traveling…

Especially this trip I’m on right now – I’m out of the country for literally a month. I wonder if he’d want to know. Or if it matters.

But there’s just this weird part of me that feels like I should call him and tell him I’m flying, that his little girl is going away for 4 weeks. Traveling along for the first time. Backpacking for 2 weeks across South Korea.

I had my phone in my hand while I was sitting in EWR before the flight attendants asked us to turn off our devices. I looked at it, thought about things, and then my phone buzzed.

Weird, right?

I mean I guess not since lots of people knew what time I was taking off because I have 9832409283402 things going on in my life right now that all were impacted by that flight time.

Anyway, who was trying to get in contact with me?

It was my brother.

Funny how the people who are close to you just instinctually know when you need them most.

<3