hiraeth

(n.) a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of their past

"... And to our English-speaking visitors, our 9am flight from Ho Chi Minh City to New York City is now boarding."

I only stared as people quickly made their way from their seats and towards the gate. Some young, some old, some American, some Vietnamese. It didn't matter, the look of bewilderment on my face did not discriminate against anyone. My grandpa, not that the man had been on a lot of public planes in the past thirty years, had always told me that there was never any reason to make a dash towards the gate when your flight was boarding.

Your seats weren't determined by how fast you got on the plane, your seats were determined by how fast you got up off your ass and booked the ticket.

Well, at least that's what he said.

Speaking of Grandpa...

"Hey, Pop. I got the money you sent through. Thanks so much, I know I've been working and I know you said I should have been saving but it all just went to..."

My mind briefly wandered to the hundreds of liters of cheap Vietnamese alcohol I had more than eagerly purchased and consumed over the past year.

"... Groceries. You know, stuff's expensive over here, Pop. So anyway, my flight's boarding now, so I should see you in..."

I turned around to look out the screen above the gate, where the flight time was showing in big white letters.

"THIS FLIGHT IS 18 HOURS, FUCK- I mean, yeah, I'll see you in 18 hours. Okay, bye, Pops. Love you."

I shoved my phone in my pocket and watched as the line for the plane moved at a glacial pace. At the end of the line stood a middle-aged woman with her arm wrapped around the shoulders of her daughter, insisting that the two take a picture together.

I looked up as a little sigh left my mouth and closed my eyes briefly, maybe because I was tired, but most likely because if I started to get teary-eyed no one would be able to tell.

"Knock knock…"

I briefly glanced at my alarm clock before rolling over, eyes blurry from sleep and mouth gaping open, wondering why on earth my mother was waking me up at when the sun was still rising for a ceremony that didn't start until 9am. I mumbled something incoherent before burying my head in the pillow.

The mattress beside me soon creaked; I only pulled the blanket over my head.

"It's the morning of your graduation, you should be up and doing cartwheels around the house."

"Mmm, s'too early…"

My mother responded to my complaining by wrapping an arm around me and practically yanking me close.

"I'm too old to be snuggling with my mother at six in the morning. Go and bother Murphy or V…" I mumbled.

"Oh, come on, just let me have this one." Mom groaned. "My baby's going to move all the way to New Jersey, she's grown all the way up."

"I'm not your baby, Mom, you have three children that are younger than me."

"That's not why I call you my baby."

"You call me my baby because my birth traumatized you so much that you spent six years telling yourself that I would be your only child, therefore you called me "my baby" everywhere and to everyone. It's a habit you haven't been able to shake."

Mom was silent for a few seconds before sitting up and opening her mouth, all traces of the sing-song tone in her voice disappearing.

"Who told you that?"

"Grandpa when he got drunk at V's christening." I answered, sitting up alongside her.

"That was 8 years ago, you were ten. Wouldn't that have made you run to me crying?"

"Not really. I didn't let it bother me, Grandpa tells me a lot of hardcore shit when he's drunk."

"Language."

"I thought you said I was grown all the way up."

"Maybe not all the way up…"

There was a brief silence before I threw my arms around Mom.

"I thought you hated hugs…"

"Just this once." I whispered into her shoulder.

Mom wrapped her arms around me and kissed the top of my head before… Oh my god, was she… sniffing me?

"What are you doing?" I questioned.

"Mmm, still got that baby smell…"

"EWW! MOM!"

We were close.

And then everything went all fucked up.

But with a simple wipe of the eyes and a silent sigh, I pushed whatever I was feeling to the back of my head. Figuring it was now the right time to board, I grabbed my bags and walked over the gate, holding up my bright blue boarding pass to a woman waiting there dressed in a matching blue suit. However, before she let me through, I heard my phone vibrate loudly.

"Tôi xin lỗi." I muttered, I'm sorry.

I stepped off to the side to answer the phone.

"Hi, Grandpa." I greeted.

"Language!" I heard before anything else.

"I'm sorry, listen, I hope you're not mad about all of-"

"Nope, I don't want to hear a word of it. I'm not mad at all. I can't wait for you to come home, your grandmother's already got a room ready for you. I just have one thing that I want you to do…"

"Mmm, why do I have a bad feeling already?"

"I want you to just call your mother. You don't have to look at her face to face, just give her a call and see how she's doing."

"Nope… Thanks for letting me stay with you, Grandpa." I said simply.

"I knew you'd be like that. Can I talk you into calling your father at least?"

"The fake one, maybe, I wouldn't piss on the real one if he was on fire."

"Don't call him that, he is not fake."

"Yeah, alright. Listen, the flight attendants are starting to give me the stink eye, so I gotta go."

"I mean what I said. Call a member of your family that isn't me… or your grandmother."

"Okay, Grandpa. Love you."

"I love you too, kiddo."

"Bye."

I hung up the phone and speed-walked through the gate and into the jetway.

You're probably wondering several things at the moment, the main one being: Who the fuck are you?

Well, I was born Ariette Tallulah Levesque (but I prefer just Ari) on September the Fourteenth 2000 in Greenwich, Connecticut.. My parents, well, 'parents' are Stephanie McMahon and Paul Levesque, but you'd probably know him as Triple H. My mom and dad had only been dating for three months before my mom found out she was pregnant with me, so saying I was unexpected was an understatement, but, surprisingly, they managed to make it work. They got married when I was three years old, and now I have three little sisters: Aurora, Murphy and Vaughn (but I called them Rory, Murph and V).

I graduated from high school last year and ended up in Vietnam after I (quite suddenly) decided to take a gap year. Saying I loved it here would be putting it lightly, the only thing I wasn't instantly attracted to was the language barrier, but, with time, even that was no longer a problem.

But, you know how the saying goes: All good things must come to an end.

A pink hotel on the island of Phu Quoc, that I had spent the better part of a year working at and living in, was hit by one of the worst storms ever recorded in Vietnam.

Suffice to say, there no longer was a pink hotel on the island of Phu Quoc.

I made the decision based on my lack of a job and the imminent expiry of my visa that it was time to return to good ol' Greenwich. I'd be staying with my grandparents, who – you guessed it – were the one and only Vincent Kennedy McMahon, and his wife Linda (I'd tell you her full name, but you haven't been hearing it for the past thirty years, so it wouldn't have the same effect). You're probably thinking: "Why aren't your parents in the picture anymore?" Well…

I'll get to that later.

But long story short: I was not excited to see them again when I arrived back in the US of A.

"Xin lỗi, tôi nghĩ tôi đang ngồi đây." I said to the same mother and daughter I had seen in line, one of which had her handbag on an aisle seat. Sorry, I think this is my seat.

"Oh tôi xin lỗi." The mother replied, clearing the seat. Oh, I'm sorry.

I sat and sighed, already wanting the flight to be over (not that it was the lady sitting next to me's fault)

"Where are you heading?" The mother suddenly asked me in perfect English.

"Oh… um, I'm heading home to Connecticut, up from New York City." I answered. I instantly felt confused with myself, I hadn't referred to the famous Constitution State as my home for over a year, but it just came out.

"Ahh… I'm taking this one to see her father in the city." The mother sighed, pointing to her daughter.

"Oh, okay. That's exciting." I responded, forcing a smile onto my face, but the moment I turned away, I sighed and closed my eyes. The 'tear attack', as I called it, was back again.

Who would have thought I'd be so consumed by memories today?

"Stop eating the pancake batter! It doesn't even taste good!" I heard as I walked down the stairs. When my mom and I reached the kitchen, we were greeted with the sight of all three of my sisters hanging off my dad. V had her finger in a large bowl of white matter.

"Hey! Just because she stopped doesn't mean you get to start! Who knows where those fingers have been?!" Dad said, lifting V's little hand up. When she turned around to sulk, she instead saw me and came running over.

"Ari!" She squealed, running over and wrapping her arms around me. Batter splattered onto my pajamas, but I didn't let it bother me; she was just a little kid.

"Hey, why is everyone up so early today?" I asked, lifting her up.

"We're all excited to see you graduate." Mom said, smiling.

I shot her a skeptical look.

"Okay, I told them that we were having pancakes before they went to bed and they all got up at 5:30 this morning." She added meekly.

"Yeah, I believe that…" I replied. V's hand had found its way into the batter again, Murph's hand was stuck in there too for good measure.

"Rory, hold this for a second…" Dad said, sticking the spatula in her hands before turning around. Before I knew it, he had tackled me in a hug and was spinning around.

"God, I can't believe you're finished with high school. You're going to Princeton, I can't believe it, one of my kids got into Princeton." He gushed.

"Listen, I'm just as puzzled as you are…" I countered, an ear-to-ear grin forming on my face.

"Hey, guess who already sent me a message about you?" Dad questioned.

"I wouldn't have a clue."

Dad only responded by pulling out his phone and showing me a message that read:

Hey, isn't Ari graduating today? wow, I thought she wasn't that old yet. tell the kid I said congrats. -Colby

I briefly wondered who was making that annoying girly whine until I realized it was me. In short, I was infatuated with Colby Lopez a.k.a. Seth Rollins, and was fully convinced that he was my future husband. It didn't matter that he thought I was fifteen years old, all that mattered was that he knew my name and that he said congratulations to me.

I didn't realize that I had gone as red as a tomato until my mom started pinching my cheeks.

"Aww, look, she's all flustered…" She beamed, grinning like I was seconds ago. The fact that I pined after Colby was an extremely poorly kept secret that had become obvious to both of my parents, not that they really cared; it was just a crush to them.

"I'm sorry, baby, but he's about fifteen years too old for you…" Mom whispered after she wrapped her arms around me.

"Hey, there's seven years between you and Dad!" I protested, crossing my arms.

"You'd put up a convincing argument if there wasn't fifteen years between you two and you weren't seventeen years old." Dad sighed, taking the spatula off Rory and flipping the half-done pancakes on the stove. I pouted and took a seat at the breakfast bar, my arms still folded around my chest.

"Aww, cheer up, buttercup. Hey, how about you tell her who's coming today?" Mom asked Dad.

"Who is?" I added, lowering my eyebrows.

"Well, a certain someone sent me a message last night saying he just flew up to New York from Florida and had time to come up and see you…" Dad paused.

"We know a lot of people who live in Florida, Dad." I said bitterly.

"Okay, I'll narrow it down: Who's the one person you really wanted to come but I told you he couldn't?" Dad questioned.

Once again, I wondered who was making that girly whiny noise until I had my arms wrapped around Dad.

"Uncle Shawn's coming! Oh my god! Uncle Shawn's coming!" I squealed. Sure I had my Uncle Shane on my mom's side, and my Auntie Lynn on my dad's side, but Uncle Shawn was on a completely different wavelength. He was my hero and, even though he had two kids of his own, I was his little buddy.

"Aw, I knew you'd be excited, baby girl, you know what time I think it is?" Dad asked.

"Humor me…" I replied, smiling.

"Metallica o'clock."

"Paul! No! It's not even seven-" It was too late. Dad had already turned the sound system on, Seek and Destroy almost instantly came blasting into our living room. Mom only sighed.

"Come on, baby, you've gotta do the headbanging now, I haven't got the hair to do it anymore." Dad uttered encouragingly.

"Alright. Count me in…" I said, standing up on the coffee table.

"Ari, no, get down from there!"

"Let her go, Steph, it's the most important day of her life, she can do whatever she likes. Alright… Three… Two… One… Go!"

I had it good then.

But I knew that that home did not even exist anymore, and even if it did, I could never go back and find it in my heart to put all the bad shit behind me and be happy.

"Chúng tôi sẽ sớm bắt đầu cất cánh của chúng tôi, hãy đảm bảo bạn đang ở trong chỗ ngồi của bạn và sẵn sàng cho khởi hành."

"We will soon begin our take-off, make sure you are in your seat and ready for departure."

As I looked up, I realised that I was not ready for departure, but, as the plane slowly began to move, I saw that it didn't matter. The world would keep turning and I would have to go with it whether I wanted to or not.

Look the fuck out, Greenwich, your prodigal daughter is finally coming home.

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