Home Sweet Home

The sweetness of home. That is what I am enjoying today. It's a feeling of completeness that I haven't felt in quite some time - years perhaps... Things are done. I don't feel compelled to continue pursuing.

I finished the Big Sur Marathon on Sunday to complete the Boston 2 Big Sur Challenge. I'll write about that later but for now let's just say I accomplished what I set out to do in September. By finishing Boston, I accomplished what I set out to do over two years ago.

In my recent quest to declutter my life and find more peace, I came across an interesting quote...

"Possessions also come in the form of titles and accomplishments."

With my competitive Type A personality, I've pondered that statement quite a bit since reading it. Do I really need more accomplishments? Who am I trying to impress? Is it for me or is it for status?

Truly, Boston was for me. It put to rest all the ghosts from my past where I felt I had not run to my potential in my youth. Nonetheless, I did enjoy the status that came with qualifying and running. Big Sur was the cherry on top and it really was fun to run around Monterey the last two days with all the other Boston 2 Big Sur finishers, sporting our finisher's jackets and being worshipped. However, I feel finished accomplishing for now. I want to enjoy just being. No more chasing things. No scheduled races. No scheduled competitions. I don't even think I'm going to compete out at the Fair this year. There's nothing else I need to prove to myself or anyone else. It's all peaceful inside.

My travels the last week have been unforgettable but I was ready to come home yesterday. I ended up having to "ironman" it home though, courtesy of United Airlines. My original itinerary was to fly out of Monterey, CA at 6 am to San Francisco. Three hour layover in San Francisco where I planned to have lunch. Fly to Denver. Two hour layover in Denver where I could eat dinner, then get to Indy by 8 pm. As good as it was going to get for cross-country travel. Well...

First, my flight out of Monterey gets delayed five and a half hours! Apparently the flights in the night before got delayed and didn't get in til 2:30 am so there were no available pilots that could fly until 11:30 am. Obviously I was going to miss all my connecting flights so then I get rebooked from San Francisco to Washington DC to get to Indianapolis.

Next, my flight out of San Francisco gets delayed because the incoming plane was delayed. We had a flight crew and all the passengers (in fact, it was overbooked) but no plane. Plane shows up and we fly to Washington DC, late of course.

Finally, plane touches down at 9:35 pm in DC, meaning it's physically on the ground with all of us still on it. My connecting fly to Indy is suppose to board at 9:45 pm and leaving at 10:10 pm. The other passengers were courteous enough to let those of us with tight connections off the plane first but still, it takes a freakin' long time to get off an airplane...

My boarding pass to Indy as well as the gate agent tells me my departing flight is at gate D20. We arrive at C19.

 

I take off at a full sprint down the terminal toward the D gates. I'm wearing jeans, a long sleeve T-shirt, a jacket, all my hair is loose, and I'm wearing a backpack and carrying a shoulder bag... oh, and it's 70 degrees in DC. Get to D20 and the gate says "Philadelphia" - F******ck!!

 

Gate agent says my plane departs out of A2 so, go to the rotunda (green square), get on the shuttle (green dashes) to the main terminal, then take the train (blue dashes) to the A concourse. She didn't tell me I also had multiple escalators to navigate up and down in both the main terminal and concourse A... and A2 is clear at the end of concourse A. By now I'm running with my mouth wide open sounding like a freight train, throat is completely dry, and I think I aspirated something in the air cause I started coughing. By the time I got to the gate I couldn't even speak in full sentences... but the plane was still there and the door was still open. Gate agent shoves me through the door so I figure I'm good but I'm confused. I'm in a glass hallway with multiple doors that open to the tarmac. Then I see the ground crew waving at me. The plane is a regional jet so I have to walk across the tarmac to get on and, really, I'm about to pass out by now (not like a ran a marathon the day before or anything). FINALLY, get on the plane. Of course everyone is staring at me. My face is bright red. I have rivers of sweat streaming off my face and neck. My hair is completely wet and matted. All my clothes are soaking wet... and I can't stop coughing. I find my seat... next to the "big" guy. Arghhh. Of course I'm sure he's thinking, "Oh no, not me, not me..."

 

Luckily, the plane was only half full. Once I regained my senses I looked around and found another place to sit all by myself and everything was better. Plane landed in Indy at 12:45 am this morning. I was never so happy to stand on terra firma to walk to my own car and drive myself home.

 

All was quiet when I got home. Kids asleep in their beds. I climbed into bed, on my lumpy mattress, with the dog, the cat, and my snoring husband, happy to be home.

 

Home sweet home. My life is complete.