The one about science

I had never met someone and fallen under their spell so quick. I like to imagine that he’d say the same about me, that the chemistry was instant. Like an afternoon storm in the heat of the summer, it came on quick and powerful and left nobody untouched. And no, it was not all just romantic – it was a deep, raw, intense, hopeful type chemistry that had me drunk messaging friends back home about the new boy “they just need to meet”. It was an exciting and challenging new friendship, never-ending whit on his end and some sassiness from mine; together we were this combination of stubborn and kindness. A chemistry so all-encompassing that it had me planning the rest of my life with this new human by my side. It didn’t matter if he was by my side as my partner or as my best friend or even as that guy from that time, all that mattered, and still matters, is that he’s there.

We were in the perfect position for that chemical brain reaction to happen. We had just moved across the ocean (for me) and across the world (for him) to this new city we briefly called home. We arrived with no friends, and no family. We were literally two beakers of bubbling reactive liquids ready to be poured into one another to create a really cool explosion that would have even the most boring of grade 10 science teachers standing proud and tall, their students in awe of their science-y talents.

We went everywhere together for the entirety of those six months. From coffee shops (both types) to rivers to lakes to very underwhelming museum trips to hostels to parks to the overwhelming beauty of hikes I didn’t want to be dragged on. We did it all and we fought. It was the good kind of fighting – for the most part – and had those around us rolling their eyes but listening intently to the absolute bullshit that we would spew back and forth for hours at a time. A never-ending stream of charged lava constantly spilling out of our mouths - sometimes it would slowly creep out and other times it was an eruption so strong we’d temporarily bury ourselves. We listened to so much good music. He showed me who he was, his chemical makeup, and in return I showed him mine.

There were three other friends in our complex chemical reaction. There were dance parties and dinner parties and birthday parties and sort-of surprise parties. There were kisses and hugs and almosts and chemicals, there were lots of chemicals. There was dopamine and serotonin and endorphins and testosterone and estrogen, a decent amount of alcohol and THC and caffeine, and an almost undetectable amount of MDMA. I choose to view those six months in the reactions between all these chemicals, and they are forever engrained in my brain as fireworks and sparks of all colours and overflowing beakers of bubbles and pinks and purples and reds and blues.

I recently flew out to the Western part of Canada. I am afraid of flying. Not the type of afraid that has me sitting in my seat itching to disembark due to nausea and annoyance and a sore back. I am the type of afraid that has me questioning my future and the future of my loved ones every time we hit some turbulence, the type that sends a minimum of eight “I love you guys!!” texts to my family minutes before takeoff in the event they are never to hear from me again. He’s afraid of flying too. The same kind of afraid I am.

Because of this shared fear, we would try our hardest to sit next to one another, so we could at least share in the misery together every time the pilot would turn the seatbelt sign on. A small bit of turbulence, and I’d see his knuckles go white, a grip on the armrest so strong it could break. We’d look at each other with mutual understanding of the irrational fear we both shared and there’d be a moment of calmness as we floated 14,000 metres in the air. There were a lot of flights during those six months.

This time, I’m alone. I’m drifting off to sleep (a miracle!) when suddenly the plane drops and my eyes shoot open. My first instinct is to look for him. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been on a plane since those six months, or because I have yet to meet someone who shares my fear of flying with me. Regardless, I decided to turn off my downloaded Netflix movie and instead, I navigate over to Apple Music. I click on my “Downloaded songs”, a playlist I have not had to use since my last flight over a year ago.

The raspy voice of a small Oregon-based indie-folk singer floods my ears and the chemicals come rushing back – some dopamine, some serotonin, and a lot of whatever the chemical is that makes you want to cry and smile at the same time. My eyes close (I’m still not sure if it was because I was tired, or because I didn’t want to cry) and my mind opens that dusty trunk in the attic of old memories and pulls out the smiling faces of two twenty-somethings on a plane with a headphone splitter in an old iPhone, full of love and excitement and a future, scared shitless and on their way to some pretty place somewhere.

So here I am, sitting next to a lady that really doesn’t want to talk to me, and the window, and I’d like to be nowhere else in the world than next to my friend and headed to our next destination. But instead I am looking down at these cities that look like they’re built for ants and listening to John Craigie and knowing that whatever chemical reaction happened in those six months, I am lucky to have had it. This time, I’m certain he’d say the same.

Here’s the thing about those chemical reactions – sometimes the product of them is permanent and long lasting, creating a whole other chain of reactions that last an eternity. But others, they are merely a few seconds of spark, enough to wow the wide eyes of the science class, and that’s it. We never got to finish our experiment, and I’m not sure if I’m terrified or if I’m grateful that we’ll never know how it turned out.