Not a Bad Start

Today I am officially unemployed. At breakfast this morning I said, ask me what I do for a living and then answered with, I’m a freelance writer. The free I totally get but the lancing I’m still figuring out.

I just returned from a mothers conference. It was the longest I’ve ever been away from The Kid – 3 nights. I’ve gone away for the weekend a couple of times but this was longer than I really wanted to be away from home. I enjoyed being there and having relatively adult conversations and not having to cut up anyone else’s food but I was very ready to come home. I missed Lefty and The Kid and my little house with my scraggly yard.

Getting home was an adventure. A thunderstorm rumbled into the airport just before we started boarding and the whole hoo ha, “airport operations” as our nice gate herder kept calling it, had to stop if there’s lightning within 3 miles of the airport. Literally, everyone comes inside and waits for the storm to pass as the pelting Florida rain seeps into your sad little suitcase.

Now, I’m as self absorbed as the next person, but I really really don’t want anyone to get struck by lightning because of me.

The waiting was frustrating and then we sat and waited for some passengers from another flight. (Why do my flights never wait for me? If I’m an hour late landing, my connecting flight has always gone on without me...) And then we waited for the flight crew to actually come and operate the plane. I know I shouldn’t complain – two hours sitting at the gate is nothing compared to the horror stories you hear of three times that long trapped on the runway with no air conditioning and backed up toilets and no water and the passengers resorting to cannibalism to survive the winter...

But I finally made it home and was soundly hugged by my kid and my husband and that made all the crazy waiting worthwhile.

And now I am well into my first day of freelance writing/unemployment and I have done the dishes, had lunch, opened (but not read) the paper and written this. Not a bad start.