Alone and waiting for two hours before my flight to Zamboanga, I can suddenly understand why airports are such lonely places. Yes, there are those couples taking pictures of each other with their luggage, barkadas chatting excitedly even though their flight to Caticlan is delayed by three hours, and wisecracking kids making their parents laugh. (And I also had to smile when I saw once again the area in the terminal where John Lloyd proposed to Sarah G. in It Takes a Man and a Woman. How many flights were delayed because of that shooting, I wonder?) And then you have the lone fifty-somethings fiddling with their phones or playing Candy Crush on their iPads, the mom who couldn’t care less that her three-year-old is hysterically crying by her feet, and people like me who are sitting on the floor just to get their laptops charged while they’re multitasking. Thing is, several of us who are in airports are not here to take vacations or travel to unknown destinations. Many just have to be somewhere, for business or family or other reasons not entirely pleasant.

I know what I’ve just written above is painfully obvious, but I suppose it’s more palpable now that I’m alone. And lately I’ve been realizing that traveling is not always an exciting endeavor. It can be stressful, and coming and going can be painful.

On another note, I’ve been wondering what is up with bringing doughnuts as pasalubong from Manila. I’ve been told that Dunkin’ Donuts used to be the pasalubong of choice of those returning to the provinces from Manila, and Krispy Kreme, that of balikbayans. And now that Dunkin’ Donuts are common even in provinces, those of us coming from Manila now bring home Krispy Kreme or J.Co (as is my case right now). I just have to smile inwardly whenever I see so many doughnut boxes being placed in overhead compartments of airplanes. Poor Manila. When we bring home pasalubong from the provinces, we bring dried mangoes, cashews or pili nuts, and even durian if we can sneak it in; for us in Manila, we bring pasalubong which aren’t originally from Manila. Ah, well. The perils of living in the city.