Sweet Realisation

Sweet Realization

The sweetest bite is all we need to remember that we can still taste.

Sara Gorden-Stein took deep breaths as she sat alone at a sole table at the newly refurbished international airport, patiently awaiting the delivery of her breakfast. She absent-mindedly moved an old half-eaten muffin and still-steaming cup of coffee to the far corner of the stained table. Brushing away the crumbs that clung stubbornly to the sticky tabletop with a solitary wipe left deserted on the table by the previous traveler who most likely hastily scurried away to catch the last call before departure, she sighed. This was the first time on her own in the common area, not protected by the opulence of the business class lounge she often relaxed in while seeing her now ex-husband off on his numerous trips abroad. She always sat with him until his final call, kissed him dutifully first on his left cheek, then the right and watched him walk confidently towards the departing gate, never glancing back. Never once did she, leaving home soil herself. It simply terrified her.

She now looked around nervously from the safety of the grubby table she was fortunate enough to secure. Flights departed, flights arrived, a flurry of passengers went by in a hurry, some with children in tow, others on business while others still in the safety of groups. Sara sat alone. She never felt more aware of her isolation than she did at that very moment amidst the bustling crowd of strangers.

Those that walked by saddled with luggage, weighing them down passed by oblivious to the solitary person sitting apprehensively and watching them go on their way.

It was at that moment that she felt an overwhelming sense of utter loneliness and despair. Her heart began to pound in loud beats that seemed to shake the very foundations of the airport floor. She could swear that people around her heard it as it increased in decibels drawing unwarranted attention to herself. Droplets of moisture trickled down her brow and nose, smudging the carefully applied makeup, demanding the immediate attention of her embroidered, red handkerchief. She shook her head, closed her eyes, tightly at first, then slowly took control of her labored breathing, instructing her eyelids to obey, for it was she, and she alone that was the determiner of what came next.

She glanced around, reminiscing, then remembering.

Sara sat alone by choice, leaving behind an unfulfilled, loveless life, hoping to find joy somewhere out there, anywhere but here. Her thoughts wandered then to others in their solitude with dreams similar to her very own, looking for something that always eluded them. Her life up to this point had been rigid and strictly controlled. Every single thought and action that of someone else’s will, never her own.

Her divorce had been finalized nine months to the day, as long as it took to carry each of her four children to term. Her children, yes, those ungrateful, entitled beings that took, took and then took some more until there was nothing left to take. The very children she bore, nurtured, and lived for, the ones that welcomed her husband’s lover as an extension of him, left her broken.

The home she shared with her husband of thirty years became a mausoleum the day he walked out into the  ever-waiting arms of his mistress, that  prepubescent-looking woman-child.

“Stop! “Start living again…” she said to herself. 

“It’s your turn. You never thought you will have any more firsts. Well, this is it, your first flight away from home. It’s really happening. You are stepping away from the only place you lived in your entire life. It was your whole world, too small, falsely secure, but yours. You never for a moment thought that there was anywhere else you would rather be, but now, you finally break free,” Sara whispered softly in a reassuring, deliberate soliloquy.

All too soon, Sara’s thoughts were interrupted by the waiter, a lanky, young Asian kid, carrying a tray with her breakfast - a large frappe dripping with generous cream, chocolate and butterscotch sauce, a scrumptious oversized stack of pancakes with caramelized bananas, mounds of vanilla ice cream, maple syrup and caramel crunch waiting to be devoured. A meal of this kind was something so decadent and new, that it almost frightened her. She defied every rule in the handbook of healthy eating in one single meal; the handbook she was forced to live by; the very one she wrote and he marketed; the one he sold for a more than tidy profit which he generously shared with his mistress.

Savoring her breakfast, she noticed the little things like a group of little 70-something-year-old ladies stretching over each other to catch a glimpse of the order and opting for pancakes instead of their bland yet safe buttered toast; a dribbling toddler demanding yummy pancakes like “the lady at that table” pointing unashamedly at her.

Fortunately, Sara realized something at that precise moment: luck did smile down on her. Despite her mundane life of sedentary unfulfillment, she realized that she had, right in front of her, what people around her yearned for. Not only in that particular moment but for as long as she remembered. She had simply and selfishly taken it all for granted and overlooked the big picture.

It was then, in that precise moment that Sara Gorden-Stein decided to enjoy every single moment of life.

In that flash of complete clarity, the solitary breakfast was a defining moment.

Here she sat, a fortunate lady of leisure, indulging in a delectable delight at an international airport, ready to fly to a new, undoubtedly  amazing destination without a care in the world.

With every bite that took on  an exciting new flavor, her zest for life grew stronger until she had for the first time in over forty long years eaten the very last crumb washed down by the soothing flow of thick, dark chocolate and cream mixed together in a perfect symphony of taste.

 She was finally and unexpectedly for the first time in her entire existence satiated and ready to take a plunge.

“Who knows? I may find happiness after all,” she thought, wiping her chocolate-kissed, red-stained lips with the back of her delicately powered hand, smiling at the perfectly monogrammed red handkerchief that sat beside her empty plate, the one she chose not to use.