“Due to a delay, you may miss your connecting flight to XXX. You can try to make the connection, or you can change your flight now…”
[27 minutes later]
“Due to a delay, you will miss your connecting flight. We rebooked your flight from…”
Great.
As entitled as that may sound, I’m honestly glad for the delay. It’s the holidays and life has been non-stop lately, even if it is for all the right reasons. I texted my cousin, who I’m flying to see, and I told him, “I better get a free hotel stay if it comes down to it.”
I must’ve sounded pretty negative about it because he told me to speak positivity into the universe. His response is why I like to visit him, and why he’s my best friend. Despite how positive I try to keep it in life, it’s a pleasant experience for someone else to care about the positivity in your life, and then reinforce it.
What he didn’t realize at the time was my hotel comment was a veiled memory. My first flight, long before I started jumping out planes for fun, was to see him for the same reasons I just gave. I left this very same airport to catch a connecting flight in Atlanta, and ultimately land in my cousin’s city. There was a delay, like this one, and I ended up with a complementary hotel stay.
I was eighteen then.
In a few days, I will be twenty-six now.
Along the way, I’ve gone to university, my grandmother has passed, I’ve studied abroad, and I’m now eighteen months shy of getting my law degree; amongst other things. It has been a wild ride to say the least and now that I will be boarding my forty(ish) flight soon, seeing the jet bridge feels different.
I pay more attention to the clouds because I’ve flown through them like a superhero (or a supervillain). I’ve learned patience and put it into practice as often as I can. For three years I was vegetarian and who would have thought that I’d have been elected to lead an engineering organization or draft constitutions for a mental health start-up or a real property society.
In this quick moment, grace and humility is what I feel shrouded in the most. It’s emotional to know I am giving it everything I’ve got and there is still plenty of journey to take on. I’ve met amazing people, truly amazing people. George Lopez is pretty nice in person, and most millionaires who earned their wealth seem to believe in not sharing unless there is an investment attached. That is something that I relate to, considering I will be one myself soon. Witnessing Gucci Mane perform live was somehow more surreal than becoming great friends with several judges and law professors. Directly challenging politicians on their big ticket agendas is always fun, especially because I live in a battleground state. Taking my first real solo trip down to the Florida Keys this time last year was the beginning of something. Not even catching five Grouper on my first deep-sea fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico was more exhilarating; and that was exhilarating.
What truly has done it, other than meeting (and keeping in my life) those who have become my bestfriends and having the continued love of my family, is the skydiving.
Yes, the skydiving. But I’ll save that book of adventure for another day. Today, as I rest for what feels like the first time in quite a while, I simply choose to exist. Yea, today is to savor being twenty-five and enjoy the remaining hours of all that it has brought me. It’s worth the patience.
Peace.
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Correspondence concerning this written work should be addressed to
“Baki”
