Earlier this year, for some strange reason, I gave away three suitcases worth of my personal possessions to my friends in Tampere, Finland and then headed down south to the Helsinki-Vantaa airport to board a plane destined for Vietnam. I wanted to start over from scratch, both in terms of forming new friendships, and by shedding the personal possessions that held me down. Before I left I spent a few hours with the girl I was dating during most of 2009, and I was filled with tears and regret. “What am I doing?” I asked myself. “I don’t want to go!” I pleaded. But I did. I kissed her one last time, gave her a hug, and then walked away.
I arrived at the airport an hour before my flight was due to take off, security was a breeze, and I walked to my gate at a calm, but slow pace, absorbing every last bit of Finland I could. The plane begins boarding, and I wait until the amateur travelers finish pushing and shoving their way inside the cabin before standing up and showing my passport and boarding pass to the flight attendant.
“I’m sorry sir, you can’t get on this plane.”
“But why?”
“You’re making a domestic flight in China and for that you need a Chinese Visa.”
“But all that requires is that I leave the international terminal, go to the domestic terminal, and then get on my plane. I’m not going to leave the airport.”
“I’m sorry sir, there is nothing we can do. Feel free to go downstairs and speak to a Finnair representative.”
I run with everything I own strapped to my back, working up a sweat since I’ve largely ignored any form of exercise during the winter of 2009, and reach the Finnair desk two floors below.
“This lady isn’t letting me get on the plane, can you please handle the situation?”
She started by asking her colleagues, then moved on to her computer, and I can tell by how hard she hit the keys on her keyboard, and by the tone of voice she used while talking on the phone, that I was receiving her full attention and that her goal was to get me on that plane, but then she looks me straight in the eye and told me that there is no chance in hell of me being able to board.
“I’m sorry sir.”
“What should I do?”
“Here are the phone numbers for the Chinese Embassy in Helsinki and China Air, I suggest you call them and try to sort the situation.”
I try calling the Chinese Embassy first, even though I know I’m not going to get a response since it’s after 17:00, and as expected I reach an answering machine. Next I dial China Air, and surprisingly I get access to a customer representative. I tell her everything that happened, and she says that there is nothing she can do. I then call the one person who I thought could help me. The girl I left less just a few hours ago.
“Hey, there’s a small problem. They’re not letting me on the plane since I don’t have the right papers. I don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight. I know this is going to sound weird since you were prepared to never see me again, but can I spend the night and then try and fix everything tomorrow?”
“No.”
It then hit me like a stomach virus. The kind of pain that makes you hunch over and grab the sides of your body while grunting and hoping that the tearing of your insides stops. I approach the Finnair desk one more time.
“How much is a flight to Dallas, Texas going to cost me?”
“Just a moment. Over 2,000 EUR if you go one way, but let me check round trip flights … How does 1200 EUR sound?”
“When does the flight leave?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll pay for it. Cash.”
“Just a second, when do you want to come back to Finland?”
“I don’t really know, whatever option you can stick in your computer to bring down the price of this flight.”
“End of February alright with you?”
“Yes.”
I remove an envelope out of the breast pocket of my black pea coat, the only piece of winter wear that I now owned, and pulled out an envelope that had all the money that was in the bank account I closed several days prior. I put 1200 EUR on the table, paid for my flight, and then had a seat and proceeded to wait until the following morning for my flight to leave. After a few minutes of boredom I called my mother.
“Mom, I have some good news and bad news. The bad news is Finnair didn’t let me get on my plane. I’m not moving to Vietnam. The good news is that I’m coming home.”
A burst of sound that could only be described as unadulterated happiness blasted out of my mobile phone and caused me to pull the handset far from my ear.
“This call is costing me a lot. I’ll send you a text message with my flight details.”
I then pull out an issue of “The Economist”, the one I was planning on reading on the plane, and start flipping through the pages. My phone starts ringing. It was that girl, the one I didn’t want to leave, but did.
“So what are you going to do now?”
“I’m going home.”
I’d fill you in on more of the details of that call, but she’d get mad at me, and it doesn’t really contribute to the story. What’s important is that I ended up in Texas less than 24 hours later and then proceeded to fall fast asleep in a guest bed room that looked like it hadn’t been touched since I left America back in July 2007. When I woke up it sunk in. I’m back.
That was exactly 30 days ago today. What’s happened over the past month?
I got to meet my mother’s new husband, and he seems like a really swell guy, plus I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen her this happy, and that’s all I really care about. I met a few old friends in Texas, people who I alienated because I literally left the country without telling them. They found out I was gone after I uploaded a YouTube video showing off my hotel room.
I went back to New York City, the place I grew up, and was sad to see that it hadn’t changed in the slightest bit since I last visited nearly half a decade ago. I wasn’t prepared for the disappointment. It’s a city that always used to cheer me up, to make me feel alive, but this time it didn’t. I felt the pulse of the city, I saw the rhythm of the people, but I didn’t want to dance with them. I didn’t want to tap my foot to the beat.
During these past 30 days I saw what I left behind when I relocated to Finland, and I deeply felt how much Finland meant to me now that I was an ocean away. I’m actually kind of happy I didn’t make it to Vietnam. This detour gave me that rare type of clarity you get only when everything goes to hell.
Where is home then? If it isn’t with my mother, if it isn’t with my childhood friends, then am I destined to be an eternal vagabond?
Tomorrow I get on a plane to Barcelona. I’ll be there for a week covering Mobile World Congress; business trip. When I come back to Texas I’ll be staying for just a few days and then leaving once again. I’ll be back in Finland by the end of this month and I’m proud to say I’m focused like a laser beam now, and I know what I want.
Simply put, it’s love. I’m going to try and get my girl back, and if I fail then I’ll move back up north to Tampere for a few months and then start making a new set of plans. It’s one of the few cities where I feel like I belong. The 80s music, the summer picnics, the slow pace of life. It’s my favorite city in Finland, and currently my favorite city on Earth.
If I do manage to get her back however … well that’s another story.
I’ll never make this stupid mistake again, that’s for sure.
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