Flying First Class

There I was — soaring through the sky, 11 kilometers above the earth — watching 50 Shades of Grey from a bed. 

Yes, a bed. And there was a plate of warm nuts. And there was a complimentary bag filled with lotions I can’t pronounce. And there was Chrstian Grey’s contract, and the matter of Ana not signing the bloody contract. And there was turbulence.

As the nuts gingerly clinked against the plate besides me, I thought to myself: I’m in a bed, in the sky, watching a guilty-pleasure movie. That’s not even a sentence that could have existed one-hundred years ago. Isn’t that strange?

Apparently, it wasn’t so strange to Aleksa. He questioned none of it; he was asleep in the next aisle, taking full advantage of this rare opportunity.

We had lucked out. A week before our flight, we placed a bid for first-class (technically business class) seats with AirSerbia on their Belgrade to New York flight. We won the bid; although that news came to us on the same day we learned that Aleksa’s grandfather had passed. Emotions were high, but it also gave us something to look forward to in the mess of grief. A new experience to distract us.

So there we were: lying down in strange seats that turn into beds. Our bellies full with actual, decent, meals. No screaming babies in our ears or strangers’ elbows in our ribs. We had pillows. We had thick blankets. We had a separate bathroom with fancy soaps. Or maybe they were the exact same soaps that economy gets, but who cares? We won a bid!

Nevertheless, I did find the experience a bit unsettling. Not because AirSerbia wasn’t fabulous and not because first-class wasn’t amazing. But you know how you’re exhausted when you complete a long-haul flight? Well, that’s just the thing. I wasn’t exhausted. Exiting the plane, I started to question the last ten hours: had we actually flown, or was I experiencing a really vivid dream? 

We parted ways in JFK: me in the US Citizen line, Aleksa in a different line. And still, I felt as though my surroundings were not real. This derealization continued for another 48 hours.

Our flight from Serbia was well over two months ago, and yet I’ve wrestled with how to talk about it on my blog. Part of me is embarrassed: only an American would find something to complain about on a first-class flight. How could I be so negative? So unappreciative? 

I can see the tabloids now: That American Girl hates AirSerbia, says “the experience was unsettling.” 

So, let me get ahead of any potential Blic or Noizz or Naslovi updates and set the record straight: we really enjoyed it, it was very comfortable — and also — I had a lot of time to think. Both can be true at once.

Since first-class fulfilled all the basic human needs of the Id — supplying us with good food, plenty of space, and plush bedding — my Ego and Superego were left to their own devices. In other words, I was lying awake in the dark, considering the BIG questions: are we doomed to repeat our parent’s mistakes? Am I in the right career? Will it ever snow in New York City again? 

[This is not how I usually spend my time on long haul flights. I usually fly with twenty downloaded movies on my phone. Half of them feature Adam Sandler. When I’m bored of this, I flip through the latest edition of Vogue (which I always buy in the airport) or I reread the last 50 pages of my book (which I always seem to finish in the airport before the flight.) I’m someone who likes to be busy. It keeps me from worrying and thinking, which I do quite a lot.]

I still don’t have an answer for prospective mistakes or my career — but it did snow again. On February 1st, a week after our flight — breaking a 700+ day streak without snow. Watching the flakes collect on our windowsill felt like a sign that things would work themselves out. 

Like grief. Like your twenties. Like Ana and Christian. 

Aleksa and I did attempt to vlog our first class experience on my Youtube channel (I guess it seems appropriate to end on another sentence that couldn’t have been said one-hundred years ago.) I just haven’t gotten around to editing it or uploading it. Life got in the way. Which is sometimes a beautiful thing.

That American Girl
(P.S. it took everything in me to not end this on laters, baby.)