When I got in the plane to USA, it was a connected flight for me — Mumbai to Delhi and then Delhi to Chicago. I stepped on the domestic flight and when it took off the airport, a massive junk of thoughts started to come to my mind and felt like no, I can't do it. I can't leave everything I have in India for something that I may have in USA, that can't happen. Those few minutes were stressful and I felt like something is wrong.
At this moment of doubt I just thought to myself to analyse why this is happening. After a few minutes of assessment I understood it's all about how you fool your mind. I was not with any friends on that flight so it was a bit lonely. The kind of person that I am, loneliness with a lot of time in hand and not knowing what to do with it is surely not ideal situation. So to distract my mind I started listening to music and magically the low feeling just disappeared. My mood was kind of swinging with every song that I listened to and it felt good, that change felt real. It was a happy realisation for me of the phrase "change is the only constant". Our mind focuses on just the things that we let it focus on, so if you look straight ahead you will definitely not know what's going on behind your back.
We know while studying or doing something very important, we cannot listen to music as it distracts us. What we forget is we can use this to our advantage when we are feeling low and are concentrating on the difficulties or low phases. I felt that songs are really a good method to distract yourself from the concentration on the lows.
Second flight was a long one and my first international flight. When I got in I expected a better seat than what I got and the first meal too wasn't really that good. I prepped myself saying yah maybe it's not gonna be that good, but that's okay. But there's a rule I remembered which I have been applying in last few years in all possible ways which is "you can't get disappointed if you set your expectations low from anything/anyone." I did that and suddenly it felt much better.
There were two other students on the two seats alongside me. We started talking as we all were Indians trying to find some comfort zone in a partially uncomfortable seat. Let me tell you that works wonders. There's no better feeling to complain about something or someone in a group. Doing it individually sucks because there's no one to listen or react to it, so no load is shared. But the conversations started with small complaints about United Airlines and the sitting/service etc. and later turned into an actual conversation. They were from different universities — UIUC and Indiana University — and also were from different hometowns in India than me. What this did is we had completely different perspectives about most things and hence a perfect spice to the conversation.
The flight was not very comfortable but let's face it — nothing can keep you entertained for 16 hours sitting at one place. If something can, you need to get yourself checked for mental issues! But it's a bit ironical that I only felt sad/low in the domestic flight and never did the same in the international flight! At the end of the journey when we were about to land, we were actually appreciating the service of United Airlines and we even liked the food despite sleeping for just 2-3 hours max.
Throughout the journey, at the airports, I was in contact with my friends/family over the phone telling them about different things I am doing which I don't know why they felt were interesting to be honest, but they did — so kudos to them for their patience! Before this trip, my last flight trip was to Bangalore and that trip I almost did post everything on my Instagram. 2-300 people knew when I took the flight and how my taxi driver looked when I reached there, feels funny but true.
I took a lot of pictures of myself and the journey with captions and highlights posting on social media. Judging by that I was expecting a flurry of posts or stories from myself on a trip to Chicago — because come on, it was worth it, wasn't it? But surprisingly, no. I didn't take any good pictures during the travel and didn't post a single picture the entire journey. I was in a phase that was telling me, the people whom I really want to convey that I am going, already know that I am going and are sad about it. What will others do and why should I rush to tell them?
Later we landed in Chicago, told the people who actually matter that I had reached, and returned back to talking to other people at the airport and trying to note down the differences in India vs Foreign, just like any 1st time traveller noob. But to my little disappointment got to know that the airport was the same as an Indian one, the Americans were also humans and life is still the same. Yeah a few things were different — like the toilets (their flushes and toilet papers), the roads and the CARS! If you don't look at people and just look at the cars, one would get a feeling that there's just no one without money in the USA. So the trick is, look at the people around you and you will understand life is still the same and balance is still there everywhere!
So after the "wuhuu landed in USA" feeling went away, me and that friend from UIUC shamelessly ate thepleys sitting in front of the MacD gossiping about stand-up comedy in India.
Later the shuttle came to take us to Purdue University. We had a group of 3-4 known people and 3-4 others in the shuttle. As the short road trip started, I had conversations with again some new people there. The more we went away from Chicago and closer to Purdue, the buildings started to disappear literally and there were just corn fields out of nowhere all around us. Looking at the speed limits on the side of the road we were wondering why this car feels faster at this speed, only to realise later that now the units have changed and it's in miles/hour now. Even though there was not much to talk about with the people on board, I surely didn't sleep for those 2.5 hours and didn't let the two around me do that too! They may possibly take a revenge later, who knows some day!
After getting off at Purdue, a senior picked us up by a rented car to take us to our apartments. Felt really good to see a friend from the same community across borders helping each other out. We reached the apartment, I called home and other close friends to let them know how good the experience was. And just when I was wondering how the journey went so smoothly without any hassle, I realised my worst nightmare. I had just left one of my bags in the shuttle itself and now my Indian mindset convinced me that I would never see that bag again.
I started proving to myself how the stuff in that bag was anyway unimportant, just to feel better. But to my surprise, that was not the case. The stuff was important and yes the bag was retrievable. I got that bag 2 days after that incident, but the lesson was learnt. Everything can be fixed and what cannot be fixed can be lived without — I promised myself.