I’ve made this resolution before–a number of times. It’s annoying to have to keep revisiting it. It’s not about dieting or exercising–those are the top two New Year’s resolutions. It’s about being confident and setting boundaries. It’s about not giving anyone the power to tell me how I should behave. You know that bumper sticker…Well-behaved women seldom make history? Yep! That’s what I’m talking about.
Hurricane Nicole was just about to cross the state of Florida. I was scheduled to fly to Memphis to spend a week or so ahead of Thanksgiving with my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. The trip had been coordinated with my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter’s visit so that all of us could spend a few days together for the first time in a number of years. I also had agreed to drive up to St. Petersburg to care for my sister’s dog for the few days prior to my departure.
With the hurricane on a path to hit Tampa Bay, I had some decisions to make. The first was to make sure I was on the south side of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in case my flight out of Sarasota actually stayed on schedule. No cancellation had been announced. With high winds predicted, I just couldn’t risk the bridge being shut down and being stuck with trying to figure out how to get to the airport. I packed up the dog and headed home to Bradenton. Through texting, my sister and I put together a plan for a friend to take the dog for the 24 hours between my scheduled departure and her scheduled arrival back home.
Miraculously, my flight not only was not canceled, but it left Sarasota only 45 minutes past its scheduled departure time. That may sound like a lot of time on the tarmac, but even after we were airborne, I couldn’t believe I was on my way to Atlanta for my plane change to Memphis. It was going to be a tight–very tight–transition. I was positive my luggage wouldn’t make it. But I was excited that I wouldn’t miss any time with my family.
Upon arrival in Atlanta, I exited the plane and began walking as fast as I could to my next gate. I had been in the airport for less than a minute when I heard over the announcement speakers, “Will Debra Faulkner please report immediately to Gate 1 for departure to Memphis. Your plane is loaded and the doors will soon be closing.” My heart skipped a beat and then began pounding with a rush of adrenaline. My only thought was I thought people whose names were announced like this were sitting in a bar getting drunk. I supposed that there were now hundreds of people in the Atlanta airport thinking that Debra Faulkner was too drunk to realize her plane was about to depart.
I scurried up to the gate, said something about expecting that my luggage wouldn’t make it, whereupon the gate attendant said, “If you made it, your luggage will.” Huh! Really?
The plane was full. There was one seat left on this Southwest flight where seats were not assigned. It was a middle seat in the second row. Well at least I’d be one of the first people off the plane, I thought. Since the flight was only one hour, I was sure being in a middle seat would be just fine.
The person in the window seat was a very very large person. He clearly understood this about himself as he was squishing himself against the window as tightly as he could. The armrest between the seats was up because his body was too large to fit. He spilled over into the middle seat. He was either asleep or feigning sleep. I couldn’t tell. The young man in the aisle seat was watching something on his phone and either ignoring me or completely oblivious as I stood next to him waiting for him to notice that he needed to get up and let me in. I had to nudge him.
The young man looked startled at my nudge and stood to let me in. I sat down in my middle seat and went to stow my backpack in the space under the seat in front of me. Except the space was already full. I was very confused by this and turned to the young man with a quizzical look on my face. He dismissively said, “There’s not enough space in front of me so I put my backpack there.”
I said, “But, I need to put my backpack there.”
“It’s okay, he said, just hide yours under your legs.”
“That’s not allowed,” I said.
“They’ll never notice,” he said with a wave of his hand as he put his earbuds back in and resumed looking at his phone.
I am a 64 year old woman. He was perhaps…30? I have children older than him. And yet, here I was, feeling powerless, struck dumb with shock, and silenced by a man. Now grant you, I was stressed by everything that had come before this moment. But I felt gridlocked between the things I wanted to say and the things I feared he and the others around me would think if I said them. These infuriating, and I mean really, truly, I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this any more! Infuriating thoughts kept replaying over and and over in my head. Except none of those thoughts came out as spoken words. I didn’t do anything about my fury. I didn’t even do anything about my fury after I noticed that the young man had stretched his legs out in front of him into the space where his backpack should have been.
I sat in my middle seat, squished by the man on my right, who by the way actually opened his eyes at one point and apologized. He also asked me if he’d been snoring. I sat there fuming. Among the fantastical thoughts I imagined myself saying to the young man were: Move your fucking backpack! And I am old enough to be your mother, young man. And If you need the space provided by my seat, I am happy to exchange with you and sit on the aisle. And Would you prefer I punch that call button and have the flight attendant deal with this situation? Any of those responses would have been better than just sitting there letting my blood pressure climb to unhealthy levels.
Was I angry with the young man? Maybe a little at his being an entitled little brat. But I was mostly angry with myself for my silence. I remained silent because the other things running through my head were: Be a nice girl. And Don’t be a bitch. And It’s only for an hour.
I made it through the rest of the flight and was soon happily united with my children and grandchildren. But, I’m still pretty angry with myself for not saying how I felt at the moment and making it clear to that young man that he was absolutely in the wrong.
My New Year’s resolution, and I’m sticking to it this time, is to speak my truth from here on out. And if some snot-nosed kid wants to think I’m a bitch, so be it.
Copyright DJ Anderson, 2023
