It’s 2:17 a.m. at Hong Kong International Airport.

Our flight doesn’t leave until five.

Nobody is really awake.

Nobody is really asleep either.

The airport chairs seem to have been designed by someone who wanted to discourage both sitting and lying down. The fluorescent lights are bright enough to perform surgery under. Every few minutes, a cheerful announcement echoes across the terminal, just in case anyone was getting too comfortable.

We’re all pretending to rest.

I don’t think I actually like airports.

I like making it to the gate.

The hours before that are mostly anxiety disguised as preparation.

Did I pack my passport?

Yes.

Is it still in my bag?

Also yes.

Should I check again?

…probably.

I’m always convinced something will go wrong.

I’ll miss check-in.

Immigration will take forever.

Security will decide today’s the day my backpack looks suspicious.

The gate will change.

I’ll somehow miss a flight despite arriving embarrassingly early.

None of this has ever happened.

But my brain insists on running the simulation anyway.

Then I get to the gate.

And suddenly…

there’s nothing left to do.

The boarding pass is on my phone.

The passport is in my pocket.

The worrying has officially become someone else’s responsibility.

So I start noticing things.

The family sleeping across four seats like they’ve solved airport geometry.

The businessman using his backpack as a pillow with surprising confidence.

Someone eating instant noodles at two in the morning.

Someone else ordering a beer because, technically, time zones make everything defensible.

Outside the window, baggage handlers zip around in little carts with a level of coordination that suggests they’re playing a game whose rules I’ll never understand.

Nobody is in a hurry anymore.

We’re all just waiting for permission to continue our lives.

Maybe that’s the strange thing about airports.

For most of the journey, they’re stressful.

But once you’ve made it through check-in, immigration, security, and found your gate, they become one of the few places where doing absolutely nothing is the correct thing to do.

There’s no email you should be answering.

No errand you forgot to run.

No productive use of your time.

Just…

wait.

Maybe that’s why I started writing this instead of trying to sleep.

Because sleeping on these chairs is impossible.

And thinking about airports turned out to be easier than thinking about whether I’d accidentally left my passport at immigration five minutes after using it.

Or maybe it’s just the fluorescent lights. ◼️