Anger, joy, loneliness, pure love, despair, surprise, universal connectivity, frustration, universal forsaken, peacefulness, sadness, apathy.

I am exhausted from the past weekend's events.
And no, not the way you might think.
I don't think I've ever experienced such a broad range of extremely intense emotions within a 70 hour span, with rock-bottom being on my birthday.

See, my birthday day has a funny history.
Typically it's the worst day of the year for me, although there have been some amazingly opposite exceptions. 
I'm not talking about having a bad day 'cause not enough people showed up to my party, no (and I've never ever actually had a birthday party) what I'm talking about is death of close family members, marriage (which is sort of like death), devastating break-ups and stuff like that.

This year was no different, except it was the worst birthday of them all, and not just 'cause I had to travel 5000 miles in 60 hours.

But like everything, there is a yin and a yang to it, good and bad and there were some nice unexpected surprises along the way that made me not want to give up, several strangers approaching me and starting unusual conversations with me that taught me something. 



Thank you lady at the Dallas Starbucks whose name I will never know: I've never ever been approached by a random stranger, when I couldn't have been more absent from the world than I was that minute, and I've never ended up sitting with such perfect stranger for over an hour holding hands while we both cried in the middle of Starbucks.

Thank you First Class Purser (whose name and phone number I DO have): I've never been invited to go to the first class bathroom in such a flattering way and I've certainly never had an hour long conversation with a purser while getting drunk (on half a glass of red wine).  And I've certainly never EVER left an American Airlines plane with something more than what I entered it with - good conversations and business cards excluded - and the full bottle of exceptionally nice wine will be enjoyed appropriately.

Thank you rental car guy for making me laugh on a shitty day with your "old chick" comment, and I hope the bruise I left is big.

Thank you to my extended Anguillian family for letting me know you're there when needed, it's amazing to see you all take care of my kids and of me, whenever needed. I know it's the way of the islands, but I'm not taking your unquestioned, unlimited support for granted and I will always value what you all contribute to my children's lives.  Your private steel-drum-concert-on-my-patio-birthday-present was amazing and nobody's ever done anything like that for me.  And I don't ever recall being that amused by some really intelligent people, trying to fly a kite on the beach, in such dumb ways, while listening to reggae music.



Thank you all my angels, you know who you are, for your affirmation along the way and for successfully breaking my travel karma spell.  This is the second trip, for a total of 10'000 miles where I didn't miss any flights nor luggage, which is conclusive enough for me to consider it broken.

All in all my birthday was horrible and I pray that I will never have to go through something like it ever again.
But I guess that's the funny thing about life - it's all in how you look at it - and sometimes your eyes are only open to the little things when things are so desperate they feel hopeless.



Perhaps laughing out loud at non-flying kites while dancing to reggae music really IS the meaning of life!