I will make my flight, I will make my flight, I will make my flight!

So I’m in the team meeting in Atlanta all morning. We started half an hour early so that we could finish by 11:30AM, but by 11AM it was obvious that if we were to finish the planned agenda, we were going to be there until 1PM. Since my flight was at 1:30PM, I was told, I would have to leave the office by 11:30AM.

About 11AM, during a presentation and discussion that I really did not need to participate in, I caught myself pre-planning for the expectation that I would miss my flight. It wouldn’t be the end of the world of course, but the cats would be stuck in the kennel another night, I wouldn’t be able to get back the RV until tomorrow, and I’d have to find and pay for a hotel room for myself (though if that really were the case, I could probably wrangle some couch space from the guy sitting next to me and his friends, they’re here for a bachelor party).

And then I thought, no, I don’t want to be planning for missing my flight; I should be focusing my intention on making the flight. And so I started thinking, over and over and over and over again: I will not miss my flight, I will NOT miss my flight, I WILL not miss my flight, I will not miss my flight! Over and over and over. And I even tried to send that intention into everyone in the entire room. Couldn’t hurt to have a few other people worrying about the meeting running over.

11:30AM came, and we still had two presenters to go, one of whom was my new-ish boss presenting on my work, so I obviously didn’t need to be there for that, and the other, well, he was just talking about what the team in India does, but I know what my team there does so I basically was unessential to the entire meeting, attending simply to participate and maintain goodwill.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to ask to leave, because I thought that would be rude. I’m still pounding my brain on the thought: I WILL MAKE MY FLIGHT I WILL MAKE MY FLIGHT I WILL MAKE MY FLIGHT when Matt (my boss), who was sitting next to me said, “Don’t you need to get going to catch your flight?”

HA! Now That’s Cool!

I said yeah, but I felt bad for leaving before the meeting was done. He said it was fine. So then I had to ask Brad if I could return his rental car and he find a different ride back to the airport with someone else with a car (we’ve done that before). He gave me his keys and walked me down to the car to get his suitcase from the back, and off I went, still chanting in my mind: I will make my flight, I will make my flight. I knew having to return the rental car was going to take an extra 15-20 minutes, so I was still nervous about not having enough time to get through security and out to the gate, but I wasn’t going to let myself think about the possibility of missing my flight. At least I was little smarter this time and had my boarding pass printed at the office so I could go straight through without checking in at a counter or kiosk. I’ve been forgetting to do that lately, since I’ve stopped flying much.

I get to the security line 45 minutes before my flight, but of course the security line at that point was a 20+ minute wait. “I will make my flight, I will make my flight, I will make my flight,” my internal chanting continued.

There No WAY I Fit Through That Gap WITH My Carry-On

I got through security and down the escalator to the trains that go to the terminals. As I’m getting near the bottom of the escalator, I see that the train doors are open, everyone had gotten in, and it was very full, AND people were still crowding the rear doors to get in (the escalator drops off at the rear of the train) so I kept cruising to the forward compartments which were all full and people waiting to get in. As I approached the foremost car, the recorded announcer woman said: “The doors are closing, please stay clear of the doors. The doors are closing, please stay clear of the doors.” I started to run. Thank goodness I was in my sneaker and not business shoes.

Just as she was finishing the repeat statement and the doors really WERE closing, I slipped in just far enough to get my computer bag in too. It was like something in a movie, it happened so fast! Not even, it was faster than that. There’s no way I should have fit through that gap and gotten behind that guy all the way into the middle of the car so fast. Freaky.

So I got to my gate and they were boarding, but they weren’t boarding my section yet so I actually had time to stop next door and get a slice of pizza for the flight (spinach and broccoli pizza, for day four of Cynthia The Vegetarian), and then I boarded.

Meanwhile I’m dying to get to a bathroom, so as soon as I got to my row I put my computer bag up above (I usually use it as a footrest, but I have a middle seat and the other two guys were already here so that would have been a real pain). Then I turned to tell them that I’m in their middle seat, but I asked the aisle guy not to get up, because I was just going to set down my snack and the go to the back. They joked about eating my pizza while I was gone, and I joked that seemed like a fair recompense for letting me get to my seat later. As I walked back I said to them, “there are two pieces, you could each have one,” but the older guy replied, “no, we’ll divide it in four and share it with you.” Cute.

So I Met This Guy . . .

So! Ahhhh, I made the flight, I got to use the bathroom, and, get this, I’m sitting next to a nice guy who’s flying to Vegas for a long weekend bachelor party. They have like 15 people or something!

Ridiculous. Another “I met a guy” story? His name is Mark and he has drink vouchers, and he said I can help him use them during the drink service. He has seven or eight of them, I think. So! Could be a fun flight, and usher in my fifth straight day of alcohol consumption after almost a year of no alcohol.

Alcohol definitely lowers your consciousness in my opinion, but the lowering of inhibitions can be good for your courage to approach and meet new people, so it’s hard to say whether drinking is a good thing or a bad thing for persons trying to develop greater consciousness and courage. I would think it’s a bad thing . . .

A note later: Yep. This story could have started with “So I met this guy . . . “ In other words, another potentially side-tracking dating opportunity was successfully avoided.