There’s nothing quite like the sinking feeling of realizing that the train is leaving the station just as you have arrived, that you have missed what you wanted by mere seconds. In that moment it’s natural to kick yourself for all the ways that you could have done something different to get there just a bit sooner. However, you could just as well turn toward someone near you on the platform and commiserate with them, gaining company as you wait.
How have you recently turned around an unpleasant situation?
My brother and I had a quarrel, admittedly mostly my fault, shortly before his wedding. So I was banned from his wedding. I felt alienated from my family, and like they were a complete family without me.
While everybody else was sweltering in their suits in an unexpected heat wave, I was spending quality time in the pool in a (slightly cooler) Berkshire location. I went on vacation where I really wanted to go, with my husband and best friend, and we had a fantastic time. We did what we wanted, took our time, and wore comfortable clothes. I thought of the wedding for a few minutes, but I was having too much fun to dwell on it.
Maggie, what a lot of fun it turned out to be…and no guilt trip, really!!
Not too long ago, after a very short airline trip planned to and from a family memorial service which was very comforting and uplifting, on leaving to return home, we were informed that because of weather conditions at our connecting destination, we would be missing connections. I was eventually advised to go on the re scheduled flight, stay overnight in Charlotte and continue to St Louis the next morning. On the flight to Charlotte, it turned out that my seat mate was a very compatible kindergarten teacher, as I had been years ago, and we has a wonderful time comparing ideas and things that had happened in our classrooms. We felt so comfortable, in fact, that because of that, we were able to cheer up a worried 17 year old across the aisle so that her nervousness seemed to vanish and she realized that she would get home eventually and not have to worry about her safety.