Oohh the flight home was quite adventurous. Let's see, I woke up around 6am MST as I needed to start getting back into the DC time. Finished packing, had a shower, had some breakfast and then hit the road around 9:30. Stopped for some Tim Hortons (needed my last fix) and then onto the highway, which was not bad but could have been a lot better. Once we hit Edmonton, oohh, so many cars in the ditch. Thankfully I got to the airport fine and in a couple of hours, my father got home just fine, so that was all good. Leaving Edmonton, flights were on time as the weather out east was getting bad and I was afraid that flights were going to be delayed. So far so good. Get on the plane, get comfortable and wait for take off. The thing I kind of don't like about taking off is the little dip that plane takes when it is gaining altitude at such a fast speed. Sometimes in that little dip, I have this feeling that the plane is going to dip down, down, down and crash. So, with me thinking this, I start wondering, what would I do if that was the case? I mean, thinking about it logically, there is no need to panic since you can't do anything about it. The planes I have been on don't have the phones in the seat so I couldn't phone somebody to tell them my last goodbyes and spread the word that I was going down in a crashing plane, and what are the chances that I would be able to get to my phone in my bag, turn it on, put in the password, connect to the wifi or some sort of network so I could place a call or a text or message of some sort to send to people to tell them that my plane was going down. So really, there would be nothing I could do about it and unless my family and friends were watching the news for the potential that my flight went down, nobody would really know.
All in all, what came out of my thinking about all of this when I was a gazillion miles up in the air? That this is something I should not be thinking of when I am a gazillion miles up the in air. But then it also got me thinking about my life and reflecting upon it. I will be 30 years old (which I am having a very hard time dealing with) and what do I have to show for my 30 years on this earth? Sure, I have had many experiences that I would not trade for the world, like moving across the country to a different country, or going to Vegas with Amie and sitting on the wall in front of the Bellagio fountains for hours but I also have nothing really to show for my 30 years - I don't really have a career, I don't have a husband or boyfriend, I don't own a house, I don't really know where to call "home". Basically, if I was to die on a plane, would I be happy with the life I have lived or would I look back and wish things were different? I think I can honestly say that I am happy with the way things have gone with my life. Such there have been lots of mountains I have had to climb and hell that I have gone through, but I have made it out of every situation I have encountered and took those experiences and made me a better person because of them. This all being said, I still am not looking forward to my 30th birthday and will be super grumpy that day hahaha. Anywho, this all happened on my first flight.
When we land in Minneapolis for my second flight, I get an email from Delta, advising me that my flight from Minneapolis to Baltimore was delayed 45 minutes. Not bad, I will take that since some flights were being cancelled. Got into the airport, which I might have to add is a pretty kick ass airport to chill out in, get to my gate and start people watching and man, were there ever some unhappy people in that gate area. We did not really know what was happening with our flight as for quite some time, the screen showed that our flight was leaving the same time an incoming flight was coming in.....which didn't make any sense to me. So, as time slowly gets closer and closer to 8, the attendant comes on the intercom and tells us that our plane is coming from the hanger yet nobody really knows where it is and they are in the process of hunting down this plane. Okay. So we have a lost plane. Great. 8:00pm hits and we aren't on a plane. No plane is at the gate. No plane is found still at this moment. Finally, I think it was around 8:30, maybe, we are told that the plane was found and was in maintenance all afternoon and is making the way to the hanger. So, not only did they lose the plane, they are also giving us a plane that has not flown at all today. Not sure if that news was supposed to appease us or what but I think it made some people nervous. While we were sitting there, waiting for our plane, the pilots and flight attendants came to chill with us and I had to laugh as it seemed so funny to see them standing there like regular folk, waiting for the plane to arrive and them not even knowing where it was or what the status of the flight was. Once the plane got to the hanger, they started boarding, and man did they try to board as soon as humanly possible. They went so fast that people were lined up and standing in the walkway that attached the plane to the boarding gate part due to people trying to put luggage up in the overhead bins, slow people, etc. I do not know what time we finally took off at but after all the
delays, the plane touched down in Baltimore at midnight exactly. I was so fortunate that Kalyn was patient enough to wait through the delays and pick me up that late. Got to her place, talked for a bit and my head hit the pillow at 2:11am. Sleep was elusive to me. My mind was going nuts - was my place broken into? Did my sink throw up and make a mess all over my kitchen? Who are my profs for classes that they are still trying to fill? Did my therapy get approved at the jail? I think it took close to an hour for me to get my mind off of these nonsense and stupid questions that I really did not need to be thinking of. Thankfully, when I did get home, my sink did not make a mess in my kitchen and my place was not broken into. So all in all, everything was good when I got home.
I am normally not a resolution type of person since I never keep them, but this year, I am going to try my darndest to make and keep resolutions. Such as, stop chewing my fingernails, finding 10 minutes each day to meditate or do some guided imagery relaxation, just something like that, take up tarot cards (courtesy of my sister) and somehow stop myself from worrying about everything and anything that I have no control over. Oh and finish my cross stitch, hopefully before summer so I can start a new one come summer. And then the typical, lose weight, exercise more and eat more healthy. I think for the most part those are all doable. I guess I will see in a couple months time how well it is all going. I still have so many things left to do here in DC, like go see the pentagon, get a tour of the Capitol, see if I can get a White House tour, go to the Air and Space Museum, see all the monuments, go to the other art gallery, go to some of the gardens in the summer, stuff like that. I have been here for over a year and feel like I haven't even scratched the surface of what there is to do here. Oohh another thing is to update and keep up with my Washington Scrapbook I have going as that thing is so outdated at the moment it is insane. I don't even know where I left off or what I need to add. Uber bad.
School is going to be insane this semester. I put up my calendar for the next two months and it looks bad. Starting next week, other than the week of my *shudder* birthday, I have either a quiz, presentation, paper or many of those due each week. Yay school. On the list of the assignments are as such: journal about my non-biting of the nails, go to an AA or NA meeting, do some fantabulous research on sexual violence risk and trafficking/forced prostitution and interview a sex offender officer. Oh yeah, real fun semester. At the jail, things are just as exiting. My proposal for a music/art therapy group got approved so that will happen at the end of January. Another group I am running is a Motivational Enhancement group and I have yet to see how well that is being seen as I just started it. My other group is Anger Management, which I love so much and have a very, very fun time doing it. All in all, will be a very hectic, very busy, but quite interesting and exciting type of a semester.
