It is always strange to think about missing a complete day in one’s life. Nothing happens at all, it just drifts past like lazy summer afternoon. I realized that as I was 38,000 feet above the Pacific, that my Wednesday is all of a sudden a Thursday, and that the Tuesday I left L.A. on is now just a mere memory of a day that once was. All of the things that happened that day will no longer exist as things to do, but things once done. If we think about all of the things that happen throughout ones day, the things we eat, consume, waking up, brushing our teeth, saying hello to our significant other, walking or driving to work, those possibilities of getting ahead on the job, making through the day a little fast, a little happier, a little better, all of those chance encounters that could happen at lunch, on smoke breaks outside, or during the commute home, are all suddenly all thrown out the window. All of the new things one might learn are all just left floating about in the air somewhere, waiting for someone else to grad a hold of them and use them. All of the ideas that are needing found are lost forevermore and we are left without one of the days in our life where the one great thing that we are always waiting for just might happen. The lottery will be won, but not by you; the girl you’ve been asking out for a month will accept, but with another suitor; the big contract at work will be won, and the celebrating will include all of your department but you will be missing and get no credit. We might have cried that day, we might have rejoiced, found God, achieved enlightenment or figured out that our lives are a mere coincidence after all. If you think about it, and add up one day for each person on that 747, it adds up to over a years worth of days. Not just Wednesdays, but a complete year of time that goes unaccounted for. It is in those days that people will think about those they left at home, those they are returning to from far away. The loved, the hated, the once forgotten and the chosen forgotten will fly through our minds as we fly through the mushy clouds over Fiji, and the flight attendant brings around breakfast as we think about where we will be in about 2 hours when we land on a different continent. Sitting, staring into some type of space that leaves us unfulfilled and aching, I recline the seat, put on my headphones, and try not to think about the day I just gave up, but the day that I will gain when I return. Each life will be returned its lost day in the end, but it is the feeling of losing something so precious that will continually haunt our conscious.
