By the time I went to bed last night, I felt ready to go to Thailand.  Then I woke up several times panicking, thinking I’m bringing too much stuff.  But, it’s too late to rearrange stuff.  Both of my connections were close so I woke up worrying about that.  I purposfully booked one airline so I wouldn’t have issues with baggage and connections, but found out last night that I had two airlines.  My  first flight was at 7:30am so I got up super early and went to the airport.  There was issue at check in.  One of my bags was 4 pounds overweight.  I asked if I could take some stuff out and put in my carry on.  The lady kept telling me the bag was overweight and she couldn’t take it, but she wouldn’t give it back to me either.  Finally, I got the bag back and moved some stuff out.  It was still overweight and then I asked if I could just pay extra for it being overweight.  She freaked out and told me she was going to get fired and she couldn’t help me.  Again, she couldn’t take the bag and yet wouldn’t give it back to me.  She called over her managers.  Same story.  I kept asking if I could pay extra and they kept saying they couldn’t help me.  After 15 minutes of this round about conversation and a lot of crying on my part, I was able to get my bag back and had no choice but to pull more stuff out.  Not my carry on was almost too much for me to handle.  When I got to the gate, they announced that the flight was overbooked and some people would have to check their carry ons.  So I checked my overstuffed carry on for free all the way to Bangkok.  I may get to Bangkok and only have one change of clothes, but at this point, I don’t care.  I cried for half the flight.

I keep reminding myself that it’s all ok.  I’m safe and on my way.  But I just want life to go smoothly and when it doesn’t I just want to not get ruffled by it.  I guess I’m not there yet.   Cognitively, I get it that I create the world around me.  So, am I creating this drama?  Is this all because I’m scared so I’m secretly creating a frustrating world around me?  On the flight, I’m overcome with the huge feeling of “I don’t want to go”.  I can’t un-do this.  There is no un-do, no do-over, no going back.  I’ve processed this before, this feeling that I can’t un-do my childhood or being adopted or being born and I just want to un-do it all.  So, here it is again, but this time it’s about overpacking.  Seems trivial when you finally break it down to what’s going on.  So what if I over packed?

I got to LAX late and only had an hour to change planes.  This involved leaving the terminal, getting on a bus, going to a different terminal, going through ticketing again, and going through security again.  I made it just as the plane was boarding.  Whew.  Ok, things are still ok.

I arrived in Seoul late.  My plane was supposed to be taking off the same time we arrived at the gate.  I’m on a huge plane (row 64).  There’s no way I’m going to get off the plane in time.  I talked to the flight attendant.  She said they’d wait.  Huh?  I run through the airport.  I have to go through security again, I run some more.  I hear my name being called over the intercom, but I have no idea how to answer the call.  Then I see a man walking my way and he asks if I’m going to Bangkok.  I said yes and he started running ahead of me yelling Bangkok to the gate.  I can see the gate and it’s still open.  I get on the plane and take my seat.  It took me at least a half hour to catch my breath.  I didn’t know I needed to train for my flight.  As we are pulling out of the gate, they apologized for the delay.  It was due to connection problems.  Holy shit – they actually held the plane an hour for me.  And I didn’t have to deal with that heavy carry on.

I arrived in Bangkok and hour late.  My luggage was there.  My ride to the hotel was there.  I took a shower and went to bed at 1:00am.  I made it here.

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore