The Rubix Cube

It was 110 in DC and humid on the day that I left.  As I stood in line outside to check my luggage, I felt as though I were on the border of life and death.  I would have passed out if the thickness of the air hadn’t been holding me up.  

Inside, the airport was packed.  The majority of terminals where I was waiting were also waiting for planes to Dallas.  It was so hot out that the planes were not able to take off with full passenger loads, leaving many, including some of my friends from training who had left for the airport over an hour before I had, struggling to get standby on flights.  My plane luckily boarded me but needed to make an emergency landing in Nashville for fuel.  Delayed taking off and delayed again in Tennessee when a leak in the hydraulics was discovered, I was starting to accept that I would probably be spending the night in the Dallas airport.  

In Dallas, I was booked on standby for a full flight.  I remained hopeful until I saw an entire high school boarding.  There was no way I would make it on this flight.

Somehow, I made it.  I was the last person allowed to board.  I breathed a sigh of relief as I sat down next to an attractive young man about my age deftly flipping the colors of a rubix cube into disarray then back to solids and again into checkered patterns.

You just have to know the algorithms.  he said.  I don’t even look at the cube anymore, you just know it in your fingers.

He was going to a naval academy in Annapolis, MD.  Both his parents were musicians and he grew up on the road.  His friends were shocked when he announced that he was joining the military after growing up in a family of musicians.  He did it for the travel, the education, and to serve his country.

I watched him play with the rubix cube some more.  Making order out of chaos then watching the colors spin out of control again with a few quick turns.

It’s hardest at the end.  You get so close to what you need it to be, then you have to mess it up almost completely to fix it.

I think that its the same in life.  Sometimes you just have to give into chaos, let it overtake you in order to restructure yourself and come out finding more meaning and order in your surroundings than ever before.  As I begin my career, part of me wonders what I am doing by completely uprooting myself and finding work in a place that may as well be a foreign country compared to Boston.  I just have to find the algorithm.