Stuck in Dallas

Wow, what a week. I was on a flight this week that gave me a lay over in Dallas, TX. What was supposed to be a 45 minute layover turned out to be a 12 hour layover. According to everyone that got there before me, there was a major storm that blew threw with 65 mile an hour winds. They cancelled the majority of the out bound flights after 8:30 that night. As soon as I landed I got an email from the airline telling me that my flight had been cancelled. When I got off the airplane I talked to a customer service rep and they told me that I had been re booked on the 7:00am flight the next morning. I immediately started calling hotels. Not only was I calling, but my husband was calling too, even though he wasn't with me. Between the two of us we must have called 25 hotels.
No one had a room. Everyone that arrived earlier than me swooped them up.

So here I was in Dallas with no flight, no hotel, and no phone. My phone had died, and the only plug to be found was in the women's bathroom in the baggage claim.

I have never had to stay up all night in an airport. But that night I found out what it was like to be stuck and stay up all night. The airport looked like a war zone. They must have passed out 1000 cots and blankets. People were piled up everywhere. They were laying on cots, chairs and the floor.

I will have to admit that when I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost 3 am I was saying to myself, I can't believe I am actually sitting here.

At this point I wanted to feel sorry for myself. But instead, I just started thinking about all of the people in Hurricane Katrina. I seriously couldn't imagine being in the New Orleans Super Dome on a cot with thousands of people for weeks.
 I immediately changed my attitude and began to think of all the things in my life that I was so thankful for. You can't stay in a bad mood when you are giving thanks for the blessings in your life.

But I was so happy to see the sun come up!!! Around 5 I left the concourse that I was in and rode the tram to the concourse my flight was departing from.  I still had 2 more hours. But I could see light at the end of the tunnel. There just happened to be a Starbucks right next door to my gate, and needless to say I was the first in line waiting for it to open. I grabbed a big coffee and went and sat down next to this girl who was going to the same place I was, except she was on standby and I had a confirmed seat. She had been there all night too just like me but she had gone outside around midnight because it was so cold in the terminal and she couldn't get back inside to  her gate until 5 because the security lines closed at midnight and didn't reopen till 5am. Another reason to be thankful. At least I was inside sitting at a gate.

I  brought Marine Phytoplankton and Chlorella tablets in my purse. About every 2 hours I took a handful of tablets and a stopper of Marine Phytoplankton and drank lots of water.  Those 3 things and a change in attitude, definitely helped me make it through the night.

Right before I got on my flight I went into the women's bathroom and there was this beautiful mother with her baby that was around 10-11 months. I struck up a conversation with her and commented on how amazing her baby was for being in an airport all night. She smiled and thanked me and told me that she was just trying to get to Florida, her mom had passed away the day before and they were just trying to get to the funeral.
Whoa.....clearly, that put it all in perspective for me. I absolutely had nothing to complain about.  I walked out of the bathroom, cried and gave thanks.

Hopefully from this experience I have learned even more that we all go through the same things in this life on some level. It's how we handle the situation that determines the outcome. We can either feel sorry for ourselves, complain and blame or we can take responsibility for our own actions and find a way to be happy in the midst of what seems like difficult times. I am truly happy for this experience. It showed me what I was made of.

I finally made it to my destination, happy and tired!!

Until next time,
Jan

www.realrawbeauty.com