It’s completely my fault. I’ve stayed up till 4am watching Netflix episodes, which results in my alarm waking me up after only 3 hours of sleep. I’m not worried though because I plan to get on the plane and pass out. My tiredness will be an asset and sleep will come easy, making the uncomfortable chairs and the fact that I can’t use the bathroom without crawling over at least one person, fade away in lieu of dreams. I am brilliant. Hurrah.

However, life often does not go as expected. Traveling alone requires that you take all your belongings with you, everywhere you go. The alternative is to ask stranger #1 to watch your bags, which I am repeatedly told on the loudspeaker, is frowned upon. My shoulders ache already as I find my gate and balance my purse on the counter to buy $8 of gum and water, which equates to one pack of gum and one bottle of water. Here is what follows:

A gate change. A delay. An announcement that because of the delay I will subsequently miss my connecting flight. When I go to the counter where, of course, they are training someone to work the computers, I naturally get this person. I drop my bags at my feet because they are digging into my shoulders while fighting the urge to snap at her with a flicker of my forked tongue. A recent blog article I wrote comes to mind: Do you Respond or React, a reminder to take my own advice.

I let in a slow even breath. Next, I ask if there is a window seat (so I can finally sleep). The trainee informs me that, “the flight is completely booked and the only seat available is a middle seat. I apologize.” Oh goody. I keep my voice monotone as I thank her, reminding myself that it’s not her fault, that she has no control in all this. I take a seat at my new gate for my two-hour wait, tired, grumpy, and negative.

And then it happens. The thought of gratitude suddenly enters my mind. A friend of mine kept a gratitude journal when she was going through a tough time. Every night she would write the things she was thankful for even if the only thing she could muster was, “I am thankful this day is over.” Distraction got the best of me when I kept one, but I noticed that whenever I would write in it I didn’t write about the huge things.

It was always the small things that caught my heart, that would nearly reduce me to tears. For example, that I had food and clean water to drink, hot water to shower, that I had a warm bed to sleep in and I didn’t have to be afraid to close my eyes at night, fearing war or abuse.

So, I open my journal and begin to write. Something my dad always used to tell me flickers back and forth in my thoughts. He’d say, “Be thankful for the things you don’t have.” Often I’d shrug off the notion with the fact that other people’s realities were not my own, but today the sentence holds in my mind.

“Be thankful for the things you don’t have.”

I think about how the odds are high that someone in this terminal has cancer. Someone in this terminal might have recently lost their partner, or a parent. I think about the TV show I was watching last night where the main character had been multiple raped as a teenager. I think about hungry people, and abuse, and child labor and I think, wow. All of these I am currently NOT experiencing.

Right now, I am completely safe in an air-conditioned airport, with a book to read, my phone, clean water, a bag of snack food, and toilets 20 feet away. I have money to be able to fly somewhere and buy gum and overpriced coffee. I have people who love me. I’m in good health. I know how to read and write and had the opportunity to get an education. I have an apartment I love and a husband who is more logical, which allows me to stay in the creative world. I was able to grow up in Hawaii with the sun and the ocean, a paradise that some families save up for years to venture to. I’ve gotten to travel to cool places in the world from Japan to the rainforests of Costa Rica.

I also think about how I’ve been protected from harm in many situations when I was young and stupid. The one I’m always reminded of is the night in Germany when I left my friends at the bowling alley and ventured home, alone, at midnight, because I was ready to leave. The feeling didn’t hit me until I had gone down into the belly of the underground subway, down two long flights of stairs.

In the corner preoccupied on the task at hand was a guy shooting up. My chest tightened and I moved quickly past taking another long straight flight of stairs. The subway was completely deserted except for the drug addict I’d left on the level above. The space was like being in a tunnel that a giant earthworm had burrowed through, round and cavernous.

I remember sitting down on the bench in the middle of the two sets of stairs- one on the right, where I’d come from, and the other on the left. In front of me were the tracks and a sign I couldn’t decipher and therefore didn’t know if the subway even stopped here at night. Crap.

This was not smart and I had the prickling sensation of fear. My body went into animal mode. Every vertebra aligned atop the other as though it were cemented in place. The walls held still and my heart echoed through the space. I prayed silently. I was a rabbit in an exposed tunnel. Stupid stupid me.

Then from the beyond the left flight of stairs a set of footsteps hit my ears. Please please please don’t let this be a male. He rounded the corner. I don’t remember what he looked like other than he was male and my breath held painfully in my throat. One second spread out like water, like the slow-motioned millimeters between the second hand on the clock. Tick.

And then something magical happened. I had only heard one set of footsteps, but suddenly a group appeared behind him, with women and kids. They descended the stairs in a flow of bodies and grouped up next to the sign. There was a train coming. My heart almost collapsed with relief. A few minutes later it pulled up. It was blue and silver and whooshed me away as I repeated the words, thank you, in the silence of my head.

Be thankful for the things you don’t have. The things you don’t suffer from. The things you are currently not experiencing. Be thankful also for the things you have, because they mean you do not have their opposites.

As I sit in the airport, I am reminded of all the things I have and do not have, of the times that God has intervened and kept me safe, perhaps even without me knowing. I have a lot to be thankful for and as I remember that, this delay of flights doesn’t seem like such a huge deal anymore. Sure, it’s slightly annoying, and yes, I am tired, but when I think about, my day could be going so much worse.

And as I lug all my belongings to the bathroom with me, for the third time, I smile and whisper to myself,

“Be thankful for the things you don’t have.”

With Love,

Z    :)