I’ll let my 17 year old self write most of this one:

I’m listening to my “John Denver’s Greatest Hits” album. Leaving on a Jet Plane is playing now. It doesn’t make me cry anymore – unless I’m feeling gloomy anyhow. I usually get gloomy after hearing it though. Good God! I was mistaken. It does bring tears to my eyes.

I always thought being in love as different than I know it. I guess I had in mind being with my love – most of the time – not the other way around. And everyone calls me “lucky”. Anyone with a love so close doesn’t realize how lucky they are. But then – I am lucky – not because I am in love with an English guy – but that the person I love loves me back – and that boy / man is Jeremy.

I wrote that on March 25, 1975 – over thirty years ago. I remember (maybe it is in a journal somewhere) that I used to imagine it was Jeremy singing that song to me.

I didn’t marry Jeremy – we broke up nearly four years later after leaving on many jet planes. I don’t know if this song would make me gloomy if I heard it again. Probably not. Nostalgic perhaps, but not gloomy.