Well not all of London, just Heathrow Airport. Heathrow’s burning! Heathrow’s burni…

Well technically it’s not Heathrow airport, but rather, one of the three substations near Heathrow that provides it power. The point is, something’s currently on fire and Heathrow airport doesn’t have sufficient electricity to safely operate. They’ve announced the airport is closed until 23:59 tonight. The issue is that my flight is set to take off at 22:30.

Of all the flights I’ve ever booked, why did this one have to get engulfed in flames? It’s a journey that’s been 12 years in the making. A product of my relentless campaigning. The destination has been a fixed point; however, as the years have trickled by, the drive behind the desire has evolved.

In my teens, the trip was purely about connecting with family, having fun and eating good food. Then as I entered adulthood the journey took on an additional significance. It was part of a quest to establish my identity. I’d spent my youth around British people who considered me foreign, but in university that flipped. I was now surrounded by foreign students from all over the world who saw me as British. Neither group of people were technically wrong, but I was yet to figure out how to hold both identities in tandem. Thus, another motivation for booking the flight was a need to prove to myself that there was more to my African-ness than simply my name and passport.

As I drifted through my twenties I started to lose hope. I made peace with my duel identity, graduated, got a job, and even bought a house, yet still hadn’t set foot in my desired destination. The issue was that, though I was an adult in this country, I left the homeland as a child and it would be naive of me to think that I could manoeuvre its streets without some connections. So I was reliant on dragging at least one of my parents along with me. It was frustrating. In most areas of my life I was starting to feel grown, but until I had the confidence to travel back home independently and forge my own personal relationship with the land, I was trapped in arrested development.

Consequently, when a flight was eventually booked, I realised its primary purpose. I needed to start finding ways to establish myself over there. To build relationships and plant some roots. And obviously, connect with family have fun and eat good food.

It was a journey that was long overdue, but with the flight now in the calendar, I started getting excited to come home. So of course, of all the flight’s I’d ever booked, it had to be this one that got engulfed in flames. Well, I gave it all I had. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be…

<< insert a forlorn sigh and a cinematic fade to black >>

Okay, I’m being somewhat dramatic.

British Airways have just informed us that our flight has officially been cancelled. We now fly out on Monday, it’s currently Friday. I have waited 12+ years to come home, I guess I can wait another 3 days. In the meantime, I’m going to take advantage of this suddenly un-busied day off and have a nap. Hopefully the fire will be out by the time I wake up.