"You must really want to go where you're going"

The objective: bicycle trip with my incorrigible and beloved Lady Elise (of Southeast Asia fame), exploring the colorful and beautiful Colombia, going to South America for the first time, being away all of February (using my sacredly saved-up vacation days and taking unpaid leave), revelling in a month of sunshine to escape the Ithaca gray, tapping again into travel-adventure me even though I do have a cat and a dreamy apartment and a job I love. I never want to lose this facet of myself, the one that, through changing my global circumstance, is forced into boldness and bathed in curiosity and where each day becomes a savored epoch.

The problem: its 4:30am this morning and I'm standing there with a giant cardboard box in the middle of the airport floor, my father just driven away, the JetBlue flight people informing me I CANNOT actually take that box on my flight. Under no circumstances. ESPECIALLY to Colombia. Not even with that pleading face.

That screen of puncturing disbelief and panic filled my view for a moment. "Oh my, this IS actually happening." I'm not easily going to go where I want to go today. I wondered how I would respond to this; in a slightly detached way I watched myself in this new drama.

Forming thoughts at 4:30am, completely alone, under the pressure of a looming flight to catch or not...I was facing a traffic jam in my slushy brain. Do I take this flight and ship my bicycle via FedEx? But unable to reach my dad before that flight left, FedEx inaccessible on a Sunday... Do I take this flight and leave the bicycle box behind? That totally would deflate the central desire of this trip...

I was in the midst of studying a hard decision requiring immediate attention that would have repercussions no matter what I did, under a countdown at an unforgiving and graceless hour.

What did I do? I hefted my huge box under my arm, this both beloved and now hated bicycle box, and marched to the Delta airline counter. I explained my pathetic story to the unfazed Mr Delta, "is there ANY chance there is an open flight going to Cartagena today?"  Tap-tap-tap, computering. I waited. And I watched this movie and was pleased to note, from my distant vantage, that the main character was not in fact throwing a hissy fit; its rare that I actually go through stressful things and I was curious how it would be.

And there WAS a flight. I didn't so much think it over, my gut flashed a light that was the closest I'd seen yet to green through the murk, and so I gave myself a small nose-bleed and handed over my credit card. Ouch. This is why people don't purchase flights just 1 hour in advance. I thanked my parents for helping with my college education way back then, so that I could do something extravagant like this, and continued to cringe as they then also charged me extra for the box.

I then noticed a Bossman standing over my bicycle box looking dour, the offending box left in the no mans' land of the ticket area, unawares of how much trouble it was causing. "That's MINE" I explained. "Let me help you move it" he suggested. --"NO" and I waltzed over and picked it up, all oversized dimensions, and hefted it to the counter lightly by myself. "She picked that up like she was superwoman," remarked Bossman. It was the only outlet of my frustration I reasonably had and I was not going to let that be taken from me. I am carrying my own box THANK YOU.

Later:
"How are you," said Mr Security, more cheerful than I see Securities usually. "Its been a long morning, already" I said, amazed that I was somehow articulating, instead of say, roaring. I briefly explained my flight plight and the enormous sum of money I had just spent. "You must really want to go where you're going" he commented cheekily. "I DO," and then added, because in at least that moment I truly believed it: "its only money."  He grinned, "I tend to believe with you on that one", and there was a brief bright moment there before I moved on, a platitude perhaps but also profound. That little human interaction lifted me considerably.

Maybe I could have done something else and saved myself that money. I could wallow in the waste of it flushed to something that could perhaps have been avoided. But more importantly, I choose to accept my decision and charge forth. Its about reevaluating the importance of things. It IS worth that much money to me to have a bright outlook. 

But that moment though, when the air ship has reached velocity and it separates from the gray runway, and my stomach lifts to my brain momentarily, and that childhood wonder upon flying breathes anew, and then gliding up we burst into the light. THAT moment effectively erases all woes for me.

This whole morning has brought me to thinking about the zen statement: that we should expect pain as well as pleasure in this life, not feeling entitled to either. Both will come along in their measure. I can't waltz into an airport expecting my bike to fly free like it did to Thailand, or expect a hunky police officer to rescue it for me from the drug-ridden streets of Rochester. Likewise though, I refuse to live expecting nightmares and turmoil. I want to welcome, as gifts, the hunky policemen and four-leaf clovers when they do happen.