This picture is from a trip a few years ago but at a time when I was sure I had missed my metaphorical plane.

Continued from Part 1…

This ticket isn’t to the original airport, it’s to another airport 30 minutes from my destination. I decide I can buy a nonrefundable but changeable ticket. There is a really late-night flight that if worse comes to worse I can use as a backup plan. My brain is churning the most complex of rubik’s cubes to solve this puzzle. I call a friend on the way to ask what the place is his mom always tells me to park when I go to that airport. He sends me the number and I call with no reservation. I ask if you have to have a reservation and they tell me they have space if I just show up. I hit absolutely zero traffic during peak rush hour which is a miracle in and of itself. I pull into the lot at 6:05pm. The bus is waiting on me before I even turn my car off. I jump on the bus and no one else is on it. It takes me quickly to the front doors and I head to check my bag. There is no line. I go through security which also has no line. This is incredibly crazy. I arrive at my gate and the plane is delayed 10 minutes. My phone is almost dead, all the seats are taken in the waiting area and I have nowhere to plug my phone in. I also have no return flight and I’m about to step on a plane traveling halfway across the country. Getting stranded is not an option because I have work on Monday. 

Finally, I find an outlet and I search for a return flight. I find one that I can use my vouchers I received to pretty much cover the entire flight. I book it. I get on the plane and I arrive in Dallas, Texas 60 minutes after originally scheduled. My parking turned out cheaper than it would have been at the original airport by $20+ which with my new flights basically nets out to the exact same cost of my original ticket. Let’s remember they tried to tell me it would cost me $1,000+ to get there that night. I have won this day. I arrive into the apartment and someone asks how the heck did I make it there (they flew from the same airport 30 minutes before my original plane) , I tell them and they reply, “I feel like this is going to be a blog post.” and here we are. 

“There’s more than one way to get to Laurens.”

my wise accounting professor

I searched for the lesson in this day besides the pure sense of victory I felt when I solved the puzzle. I used to have an accounting professor who would say “There’s more than one way to get to Laurens.” which was a neighboring county meaning you can end up with the right answer by doing the problem in different ways. The route I planned to get to Dallas went catastrophically awry…and some could say 28 year old me probably thought life was going in a similar direction but life is what you make of it. I’ve learned the most important things in life aren’t what happen to you…it’s how you choose to handle it. It’s what you choose to gain from it. It’s making the best of unfavorable situations. It’s cherishing the good moments and the happiness even if it’s fleeting. Sometimes life may only send us moments of happiness. Sometimes it’s someone laughing with you through the tears. Lots of times it’s the people with us on the journey. 

In life, you receive a message of how you “should be” and what a successful life “looks like” no matter where you live. Depending on where you live the culture is different so the story is told differently. It’s don’t get married too old or don’t get married too young. It’s money and accomplishments and power are prized or don’t work too hard and have a lot of fun. It’s live in the big city and chase your dreams or move back to your hometown, the good life is spent with family. We all have a vision in our heads of what a desirable destination looks like and how we are going to get there.

Some people get one-way direct flights to their destination that arrive on time and are smooth sailing. Some people get on flights and think they’re on their way to the destination they wanted until they have a nightmare layover half-way there. Some people keep getting a plane that is delayed and delayed and delayed. Some people choose to wait hoping to make it to their destination far past the time they originally anticipated, if at all. Some people give up and cancel their trip and go home. Some people lose hope their plane is on its way and then some people….some people realize they’re waiting on the wrong plane and they choose to do something about it.

They taught me a whole lot of things…the sort of things that when someone tells me there are only options A, B and C…I believe I can make options X, Y and Z. You see nothing going according to plan…well it made the very best parts of me.

They choose to be risky and they choose to be daring. They choose to rewrite their story. They realize that maybe the way they originally thought they’d reach their destination looks different and they’re open to a plot twist. If anything they’re going to fight to make it to their destination regardless of what it takes to get there. I wish I could say to you….I wish my life had gone all according to plan…but I don’t. The immense challenge of none of it going according to plan, the worst of circumstances…they tested me but they also made me. They made me confident. They made me dynamic. They made me resilient. They made me creative. They made me bold. They taught me how to manage disappointment. They taught me how to make decisions in a very decisive manner. They taught me not to apologize for taking a different path. They taught me that fear isn’t a dictator of the decisions I make. They taught me a whole lot of things…the sort of things that when someone tells me there are only options A, B and C…I believe I can make options X, Y and Z. You see nothing going according to plan…well it made the very best parts of me. I would do it again. All of it…twice. The things it made me are far superior to whoever I would be if the plan went according to plan.

Sometimes I feel like my plane had been delayed and other days I feel like I’m running at breakneck speed to catch the plane I know I’m meant to be on. I spent a few too many years waiting on a plane that felt delayed and no matter how long I waited…I promise what I was waiting on would have never arrived for me. Because what I was waiting on was someone else’s plane and destination. Rerouting takes a lot more work than waiting, it comes with a lot more doubt at certain points, it requires a lot more bravery out of you than waiting for life to happen to you. If you’re sitting in a life that just doesn’t feel like the life you were meant to live, remember there are more journeys and more destinations waiting on you. There is more than one way to get to the life you want…but you’re just going to have to let go of the life you know and bet on yourself when you have no assurance that it’s going to turn out like you hoped.

Catch Flights and Feelings, 

Molly