patience

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.
John Steinbeck

Somehow, our trip home felt as long as the whole vacation. Mid-week, I had been checking the news on-line and saw that they were calling for snow Friday into Saturday. Our flight was supposed to leaving St. Thomas Saturday afternoon, fly into JFK and then onto BWI for an 8 pm arrival. As we got closer to that day, we were checking airlines and keeping a careful eye on the forecast.
Jeff and I went the airport and the adventure began. We were told that we could get to JFK that afternoon but that we would not be able to get a flight out of there until Monday night. Plan B – fly to Atlanta, get a plane home Sunday night. Final offer.
So, we flew to Atlanta. We weren’t sure if we could get a hotel room or if they would all be filled. We knew there was the possibility of spending the night in the airport. Thankfully, we did get a room at a Comfort Inn and Suites. The staff could not have been nicer. They gave us a suite for a dirt cheap price even though we did not have a voucher. We had a nice breakfast, courtesy of the hotel, and a shuttle ride back to the airport.
Then the day that seemed like a week began. 10 hours in an airport seems like an eternity…especially when you had plans to be home watching the biggest football game of the year. The hardest part of the day was knowing I would only see ½ of the Super Bowl. Our flight was at 9:20 pm. Figure in boarding time and we would probably only get to see the first half. After three gates changes (and Atlanta is not a small airport) we finally settled in to watch the game. Then our lucky break – a delay! Now, we weren’t leaving until 10:40 pm. It turned out to be perfect. Right after the last few seconds of the game, we boarded. (I know there are some of you women out there saying this is crazy but I love football and I needed my last fix before going into the long off season).
We arrived home at midnight…to a winter wonderland…or a winter nightmare. For the first time we had paid the extra bucks and parked in the garage. What a blessing that was. A clean, dry car. We got in, drove home, marveling at all the snow. We knew it was going to be tough once we got home. And it was. 2 am….no place to park the car and a driveway full of snow. When what we really wanted was to crawl into bed, we had to grab shovels and clean out a space large enough to get our car out of the road.
3:30 am – finally to bed. It was a long day. It was a day full of twists and turns, delays and waiting. There were a lot of people in our same situation. I heard grumbling, complaining, and blaming. Frustrated people taking it out on other frustrated people. Several years ago, I would have been one of those people. But I noticed that I was relaxed and able to see things I was thankful for. We had just had a lovely vacation. We did not have to spend the night in the airport. We had food. We had books to read. We got to watch the complete Super Bowl. Our flight was uneventful. Our car was snow free and dry. We got to spend a ½ hour together shoveling our driveway to have a place to put our car (ok – I might be stretching that one a bit – but I really didn’t mind).
It really is a matter of perspective. So much was out of my control and out of everyone else’s control. Delta certainly couldn’t make it stop snowing (although it seemed as people thought they could).
So – consider how to enjoy the journey. It is so much easier to do when you realize you can’t control it – all you can control is how you respond to it.

Grace and peace,
Deb