Not all that glitters is gold
I took my seat next to a pretty, confident, slim woman and immediately felt inferior as she flashed a reluctant smile, crossed her perfectly-tanned legs neatly and glanced briefly at my stomach.
‘Never mind my stomach, love,’ I thought. ‘My thighs are going to spread like dough across your seat in a sec.’
“Hia!” I grimaced, struggling to shove my jacket into the overhead compartment and showing her my straight teeth in a bid to match her beauty. “Are you off to South Africa then?”
She nodded and sighed despairingly, glancing out of the window towards a plane on the terminal beyond.
Great. A bitch. Just what I need to be sitting next to for eleven and a half hours.
After a couple of hours and a couple of gins, my companion decided that I was worthy of some sort of conversation. We got chatting and she wearily explained that she was an American girl living in Canada but in the process of moving to Cape Town to run away from her problems.
“America brings out the worst in me,” she explained, swilling her glass and draining the dregs. “Canada isn’t much better. In the States I’m a demon from hell. Cape Town relaxes me. I like the person I am when I’m not with Americans.”
“Why Cape Town?” I asked.
“Why not?” she shrugged. “It’s hot and it’s at least two flights away from Canada.”
Fair point.
We ordered a couple more drinks and got talking about our travels. This girl had been everywhere. I know this because I spent the next three and a half hours nursing a deadpan expression as I learned in excruciating detail about the places she had travelled to, was nevr going to travel to and hadn’t travelled to yet but that might be on her list.
It was only when I started dozing off that she nudged me and asked where I was headed.
“Oh, er, Tristan da Cunha,” I said, trying to be cool about the whole thing.
“Oh yeah, sure,” she said, flicking through the in-flight magazine. “Nice place.”
“Have you been there?!” I screeched, turning to her with an incredulous gasp, amazed that out of all the people on the whole aeroplane I was sitting beside a real-life person who had actually been to the island of my dreams.
“Sure,” she scoffed. “A few times actually. I mean, who hasn’t? It’s cool. Good beach. Good nightlife. You’ll pick up a tan.”
“I’m not sure we’re talking about the same place,” I smiled.
“Well, where’s your place at?” she said, slamming the magazine shut and looking genuinely interested for the first time.
“It’s in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean,” I crowed, trying not to squeal. “It’s a very, very remote volcanic island. In fact, it’s the most remote inhabited island on the entire planet.”
After a brief pause, an eyebrow raise and a frown, the woman nodded slowly. “Far out.”
“Very far out,” I agreed. So far out I wouldn’t be bothered by people like her.
“So are you flying there?”
“No, I’m getting a ship from Cape Town.”
To my delight my neighbour was keen to learn more and listened intently as I described the island, my five-year long dream to reach it and how finally after half a decade I’d managed to find a ship to take me there.
“Wow, you must be one determined lady,” she said. “You’re surely the most fascinating person I’ve ever met.” I wasn’t certain as to whether or not she was being sarcastic, until she sighed and slumped into the back of her chair. “I wish I was like you, living dreams and going to weird places. I’m trapped in my own arrogance. I’m truly jealous and in awe of you, if you want the truth. And those teeth!”
I was staggered. She had everything that made me feel inferior. She was cool, independent, slim, stylish and so worldly wise that I found her totally intimidating. She’d been everywhere – she’d told me so. She was in the throes of moving to her third country, brave enough to start over in a new land, brave enough to leave everything behind.
I told her this, whilst awkwardly wiping a tear from her cheek.
“Not so much brave,” she whispered, “but a coward who runs away.”
I nodded a silent look of understanding. I didn’t bother to tell her how I’d run away from pretty much everything in my life for as long as I could remember. A moment of connection passed between us and we held hands, each drawing strength from the other until I passed her a blanket and suggested she get some rest.
“I don’t know why you’re bothering with a dirty old ship,” she sniffed, tearing the blanket from its plastic shell. “Why don’t you just fly there – it’s surely faster?”
“Well, you can’t just fly there. It’s too far. There’s no runway,” I smiled. “The only way to get there is on water – and it’s rare for a boat to go there. The ship I’m going on visits once every five years. It’s a mail ship.”
“A male ship?” she smirked, her dismissive demeanour returning as fast as her tears dried. “Do ships have genders as far as we know?”
“Get some rest, you plonker,” I giggled, elbowing her arm before pulling a sleep mask over my eyes. “You’ve a new life to begin and I’ve got a dream to live.”
As the plane carried us gently towards the southern hemisphere, I lifted my mask briefly and watched for a few moments as the golden rays of a fading sunset softened my companion’s face.
I made a promise to myself in that moment: never again would I allow myself to feel inferior. No matter how ‘sorted’ a person can appear and no matter how perfect their life may be, they are certain to harbour the very same doubts, struggles and disappointments as I do.
