The Seat Next to Me

Alex Martin (she/her)

Editorial Team Member

Ever since last year, I have been attending international trips that my school offers. These trips offer a chance to explore the world, become cultured, and expand my knowledge globally. Excursions like this are extremely eye-opening, breaking the bubble of my small town of Barrington and the seemingly closed-off state of Rhode Island. However, actually traveling to these places is often a hassle. On every trip I’ve been on, whether it’s Spain, France, or Ecuador, I have always been assigned to sit next to the same person. This person, who I have been traveling with all these years, has severe autism. On the many plane rides I’ve been on with this person I have taken account of his behaviors. Whether it’s scribbling music notes on a piece of notebook paper or listening to his own piano playing, he is always doing something intellectually challenging or fulfilling his human nature. Taking note of this person next to me, I looked around at the other people in the plane. All I can see is people sucked to their screen. It was really depressing to me how lifeless and unfulfilling the things humans indulge their time into. All the other seats on the plane held this sense of boredom, a sense of tiredness and unchallenged motive. It was daunting to me how this is normal for the average person. The only person who had a spark of excitement on something as monotonous as a plane ride was the seat next to me. After all these countries I’ve been to and explored with my school, I have found I have learned the most just from this person who was so close to me all along. The seat next to me has taught me to be excited and moved even in the “boring” parts of life, to engage in fulfilling activities,  and to really be conscious of what is closest to me. Even though I have traveled far and strived for education one thousand miles away, I have absorbed the most information about the world from the seat next to me.