Airports tell us these things.

The perfect analogy for everything...it was the microcosm that shed light on every thing that we were. I dropped her off at the airport expecting to never see her again. As she showed her boarding pass to the FAA agent, they let her through security and into the gate where she waited for her flight number to be called. To secure flight passengers, they've put up a 3-inch-thick plate glass window...there's no more running through the terminal to save your lover like in the movies. I followed the numbers to where her gate was on my side of the airport. I thought I would watch her take off as it would be the last time to see her leave my part of the world. When I reached the gate, I rounded the corner and saw her sitting with her back turned to me. I watched her wait quietly in the terminal staring out of the window, with her mind spinning on the exact same things that were spinning in mine. What went on that weekend. Where we go from here. More importantly why we'll never come back to this place. A child ran past her and dropped his toy on the ground at her feet. She bent down to pick it up and handed it to him and offered enough words to draw a smile across his face and send him on his way...what they were, I never heard. As she turned to watch him run away she caught my eye and her face lit. She walked over to the window where I was standing. She mouthed several words that were inaudible through the dividing window. I mouthed the three words I'd said over and over and over. There was a mechanically revolving door four feet away. I walked up to it with the intentions of one last embrace before she left and we had to face the impending self-introspection that was awaiting us both on her return. As I tried to walk through, a siren went off. I was thrown back by the door and an airline employee made her way to me, very indignant about what had just occurred. She pushed a series of buttons on a keypad along the wall and scolded me for my inability to comprehend signs that obviously explained to me that this was a one-way only passage. Obviosuly embarassed, I stepped back up to the window where she was laughing at the sequence of events that had just taken place. One more parting shot was thrown my way by the airline attendant who was more than annoyed that I took her from her important duties of crossword puzzles as she guarded the rotating door like a sentinal, but I didn't hear it, my eyes were fixated on what was in front of me on the other side. I put my hand up on the glass, expecting to have the same gesture offered to me from the the opposite side. With a smile on my face I looked her in the eyes and saw the hesitation. I mouthed the words again, but there was still nothing in her eyes that imparted to me that her hand would match mine on the glass. She smiled and mouthed goodbye. I took my hand off the glass and fastened my stance as my heart fell like an anvil down an elevator shaft. Just then her number was called, and she waved, walked to get her bag and waved again. I watched her hand her ticket to the flight attendant and she turned and paused for a split second to see if I was still watching. Then like it came, it went. Always able to see each other...always able to see where we wanted to get...but there was always an invisible barrier or alarm present when we were too close to getting there...never allowing passage. So we left it alone.