Doing the same thing, but expecting different results, isn’t that the definition of………..

Part of me saw this coming.   Covid lockdowns and travel bans, last minute decisions made by school administrators, missiles clogging the airspace, and bureaucratic complications should have been subtle hints.  Flight cancelations and rebooking  travails should have served as confirmations. 

After 8 hours on the ground at JFK, I’ve spent more than an hour waiting on the plane, on the tarmac, at the gate.  It seems that even secondary and tertiary plans are elusive and little more than an illusion.  Life is much less predictable than we desire, far less stable than we dream.

I’ve had a lot of time to notice the wide range of differences with how we react to the stresses  and strains of uncertainty.  Some look for an individual  or group on which they can focus their incessant blame, proclaiming loudly to anyone willing to listen or at least within earshot.   Others get angry, now snapping at an exhausted and whining child or hapless fast food worker.  Some just shut down completely, while others assemble plans and alternatives.  And some find humor, joking that in the endlessly looping welcome by Charlotte’s mayor in which she notes how rapidly -growing the city is, the reason for the growth is that no one can ever leave the airport or that in another hour, we’ll have to pay taxes.

But the waiting also gives  us the chance to learn a little more about each other’s stories:  the man who couldn’t take a business flight in the late afternoon because he was flying to Denver the following day to see his daughter for the first time since COVID struck, or the couple who just needed to make sure their luggage would follow them as they found a later flight or the woman who was inconsolable because missed her uncle’s funeral due to weather and cancelations.

It’s easy to be angry, to be bitter, to rage against a capricious cosmos. It’s normal to be disappointed when our plans fall through due to acts of nature or failures of technology. But we also have to see that we aren’t the only ones being singled out; that others are just as discomfited and discouraged.

Somehow, we will muddle through, the straight path will give way to the long and winding road, and we will get where we need to be. Life happens while we make plans and the journey continues.