Airports are soaked in grief. No one really talks about it, but it’s there. In the air, under the hum of those tired fluorescent lights, between the smell of cold coffee, stale donuts, and disinfectant. I’ve noticed it since I was a kid. Back then, it looked like mothers holding their sons too tight, lovers pretending they weren’t about to break, and people staring just a second too long before walking away, then looking over every so often from the TSA line to make sure their person is still watching. As a grown-up who basically lives in airports now—flying weekly for work, for food, for pleasure, for cheap massages, for reunions—I see it even clearer. Maybe it’s because I also work so closely with grief itself, sitting beside it, learning from it, helping others make peace with it. So when I say airports are emotional graveyards and rebirth centers all at once, I mean every syllable of it.
And really, upstairs and downstairs couldn’t be more different. Upstairs—Departures—that’s where the anticipatory grief hits hardest. The “I’ll text you when I land” grief. The “I should’ve said more” grief. The tight hugs that last long enough for your eyes to water but not long enough to make it weird. Upstairs is where loss becomes official. Where people try to look casual but are quietly breaking in public. It’s where I’ve seen hardened grandpas turn away so no one sees their faces crumble. It’s where the tears fall hard, and no one’s there to wipe them.
But downstairs is a whole different planet. Arrivals is where joy explodes. Flowers, balloons, signs that say Welcome Home Catina! Kids running so fast they almost wipe out before they reach the arms they’ve been waiting for. Lovers hiding behind poles to surprise each other. Abuelas crying from joy instead of heartbreak. Arrivals is pure resurrection. It’s the after-party to upstairs’ funeral.
And yet…even in all that joy, there’s still something tender and human underneath. The same emotions, just dressed in different clothes. Because to be that happy someone’s here means you also know what it feels like when they’re not.
This isn’t an essay about fixing anything. It’s just a small acknowledgment. A nod to the emotional rollercoaster that is an airport. A place where people are constantly rehearsing how to say hello and goodbye.
But since I have you here, I should probably say this: I feel a tinge of loneliness every time I walk through those automatic doors downstairs. Every time I roll my bag into the arrival hall from the international baggage claim and see everyone hugging and crying and lifting kids into the air, there’s that tiny sting in my chest. Because there’s never anyone waiting for me. I pass the flowers, the laughter, the signs, and walk out to catch my rideshare to a hotel room that’s quiet and clean and lonely in a city where I know plenty of people—but not one who’s waiting at the door.
Sometimes I try to make it funny, tell myself I’m too unpredictable to greet at Arrivals. You’d never know if I was coming from Bangkok or Baltimore. Sometimes I imagine a cardboard cutout version of me waiting there just to make it less sad. But truthfully? It hurts a little.
Still, I keep showing up. I keep flying, keep walking through those arrival doors, keep looking up when they open just in case someone’s there. Because that’s the thing about airports: they’re proof that love and loss are always holding hands, trading places. Upstairs, downstairs. Goodbye, hello.
And somewhere in between baggage claim and gate 32, all of us are just trying to find our way home.
