It’s not that it was hard to decide whether to catch a flight (actually 2) home a day early when the meetings ended early, it’s just that being this tired, rushing from concourse to concourse and the undercurrent at Newark Airport in the 2-hour layover is depressing.

I just want to be home.

Instead, I’m half asleep with the sound of screaching children in my head with a Spanish tv station or radio station in bass tones coming from behind me or inside my stomach.

i hear newpapers’ pages being turned, a woman crying, and a young girl slurping on her frozen Starbucks mocaccino.

A cough. Another cough. More screaching, but happy this time.

I’m going home.