Leaving on a Jet Plane - John Denver

by Emily
(Cambridge, Mass.)

My all time favorite love song is John Denver's "Leaving on a Jet Plane"; because it reminds me very sharply of a period of my own life.

I was introduced to my husband online by a mutual friend. She sat me in front of a web-cam while he was at work and said 'speak'. It was not a promising start, but it was an interesting one. He's American; I'm English. I had sworn, many times over, that I would never - ever - visit the USA. Less than a year after we first spoke, I was on a plane, flying across the Atlantic. I must have been nuts. I spent three months with him, by which time we already knew we were getting married. We started the paperwork while I was there.

It was one of the happiest times of my life - and the only dampener on it was Denver's "Leaving on a Jet Plane". Whenever I would hear that song it was like someone had stabbed me through the heart - it was a constant reminder of my impending leaving. One doesn't get to get married and stay on a tourist visa.

Then I had to go home. It was devastating - more so than any other single moment of my life - and I cried that entire day. My father picked me up from the airport and *of course* that song was on the radio.

My time without my husband was the worst of my life. We saw each-other once more in person before my paperwork was complete - neither of us could afford to fly more than that - and through it all that song reminded me of leaving him there, in the airport.

"Don't know when I'll be back again," are the lyrics that hurt the most - for me they were true. It took almost a year to get back to my now-husband, and we married two days after that. Now I listen to that song and it still stings me as I remember that flight home from the USA, not knowing when I would see the love of my life again... knowing we would marry, no matter what.

There are few other songs that have such a great effect on me, and none with such vivid memories of my life. It may be painful, but it was a part of my life that has brought me to the happiest I have ever been - so I love "Leaving on a Jet Plane". Mostly because, as the song promises, I won't ever have to leave like that again.

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