Rising Above It All
It’s all good again.
Thanks to that snow-filled, therapeutic run and the encouraging comments (thanks to every one of you!) that followed my writing about it, I privately forgave all the slights and sour remarks and vowed to watch my mouth. In turn, the week indeed improved, as I hoped it would, with a terrific dinner with true friends, a decent night’s sleep and hugs all around the office before I left for Logan International Airport on Friday afternoon.
As I write, my dirty underwear is in Denver and my damp Sauconys are probably molding while enroute to Los Angeles, not San Diego. To top it off, I didn’t get back in time for this morning’s Legoland Run that I was so looking forward to doing with our marathon training group. Worse yet, there is one guest speaker that is a must for me and, naturally, former Olympian and cancer survivor Steve Scott picked today to give his pep talk. Yeah, yeah. I’ll live.
So here’s how it came to take an extra day to get home.
Shortly before I was due to board a Denver-bound plane, United announced the aircraft was broken and it didn’t look good for anyone making a connection. So about fifty of us lined up to make alternative arrangements. For me, it ultimately meant taking a flight to LAX and then the Super Shuttle to San Diego. Truthfully, I wasn’t thrilled with someone picking me up at an abandoned airport in the middle of the night.
I was told my bags would be redirected to LA, but when I finally arrived around 10 p.m., my luggage was still in Denver and wouldn’t arrive until the next day. The shuttle also had left without me. So I received a hotel and meal voucher for a nearby Marriott, where the staff graciously showered me with toothbrushes, toothpaste, lotions and deodorant. I got into bed around 11:30 and woke at 4 to shower, throw on the same clothes and make the shuttle with plenty of time to spare. I used the voucher on a well-deserved venti-sized chai latte that I managed to spill on the seat next to me while trying to figure out how to fix my mysteriously malfunctioning laptop. By the time we touched down in San Diego, I learned one piece of luggage was headed to LA and the other never left Denver.
If this were Wednesday, I’d be drumming up conspiracy theories or, at the very least, sulking about this latest stretch of bad luck. But this morning, I watched the most spectacular sunrise from my window seat 13,000 feet above the Southern California coast. The skies’ prism turned clouds into cotton candy and illuminated mountains like a Thomas Kinkade painting. If I’d stuck to my original flight plans, I’d have missed this moment. So, instead of stewing about the past week’s misfortunes, I’m going to celebrate how lucky I am to be where I am. See? I told you. It’s all good again.
Thanks to that snow-filled, therapeutic run and the encouraging comments (thanks to every one of you!) that followed my writing about it, I privately forgave all the slights and sour remarks and vowed to watch my mouth. In turn, the week indeed improved, as I hoped it would, with a terrific dinner with true friends, a decent night’s sleep and hugs all around the office before I left for Logan International Airport on Friday afternoon.
As I write, my dirty underwear is in Denver and my damp Sauconys are probably molding while enroute to Los Angeles, not San Diego. To top it off, I didn’t get back in time for this morning’s Legoland Run that I was so looking forward to doing with our marathon training group. Worse yet, there is one guest speaker that is a must for me and, naturally, former Olympian and cancer survivor Steve Scott picked today to give his pep talk. Yeah, yeah. I’ll live.
So here’s how it came to take an extra day to get home.
Shortly before I was due to board a Denver-bound plane, United announced the aircraft was broken and it didn’t look good for anyone making a connection. So about fifty of us lined up to make alternative arrangements. For me, it ultimately meant taking a flight to LAX and then the Super Shuttle to San Diego. Truthfully, I wasn’t thrilled with someone picking me up at an abandoned airport in the middle of the night.
I was told my bags would be redirected to LA, but when I finally arrived around 10 p.m., my luggage was still in Denver and wouldn’t arrive until the next day. The shuttle also had left without me. So I received a hotel and meal voucher for a nearby Marriott, where the staff graciously showered me with toothbrushes, toothpaste, lotions and deodorant. I got into bed around 11:30 and woke at 4 to shower, throw on the same clothes and make the shuttle with plenty of time to spare. I used the voucher on a well-deserved venti-sized chai latte that I managed to spill on the seat next to me while trying to figure out how to fix my mysteriously malfunctioning laptop. By the time we touched down in San Diego, I learned one piece of luggage was headed to LA and the other never left Denver.
If this were Wednesday, I’d be drumming up conspiracy theories or, at the very least, sulking about this latest stretch of bad luck. But this morning, I watched the most spectacular sunrise from my window seat 13,000 feet above the Southern California coast. The skies’ prism turned clouds into cotton candy and illuminated mountains like a Thomas Kinkade painting. If I’d stuck to my original flight plans, I’d have missed this moment. So, instead of stewing about the past week’s misfortunes, I’m going to celebrate how lucky I am to be where I am. See? I told you. It’s all good again.
