Saturday, May 30th an unsuspecting Delta employee kindly greets me in a deserted terminal at DTW where moments later for the first time in public, I shed uncontrollable tears. I try to hold them in, I really do. I tell myself, 'Keep your composure, at least until you make it to the pay phone cubby'! That statement in and of itself was enough to keep the water works flowing; I don't even have a mode of communication. I am now just like the terminal, deserted.
After 6 days - one hundred and forty four hours - of travleing, packing, shopping, preparing, hello's, goodbye's, driving, planning, laundry, stressing, reassuring, visiting, organizing, explaining, emailing... my emotional rollercoaster came to a crashing hault; I'm stuck in Michigan and I'm not going anywhere. Well, until I get either A) A visa or B) Shell out a couple more hundred for a new flight to do so. My effortless dreams and plans have been crushed. This cannot be happening, this isn't how it was supposed to go. I know it's no use, what's the point of debating reality? Reality has brought me right back into a Volvo, cruising down 94, and my mind can't stop racing to figure out what my next move will be.
Despite my creativity, my options are quickly being exhausted. In order to reissue my unused ticket (Flight NW8901 is flying high in the sky by now) to redeem the whopping $98 to put towards a new ROUND TRIP ticket (very important for all of you international travelers out there!), I would owe a $150 penalty and another $50 on top of that. Superb. Scratch that. How about a Visa? I ring the Colombian Embassy in D.C. Perplexed why no one was picking up my call, a light bulb flickers: it's Saturday. Man, I'm really on a roll here. I do a little google'ing and my speculations (driven primarily by sentences that pretty clearly state exactly this) lead me to realize it could take a whole lot of time before I'm granted a Visa. I begin to loose faith; looking out the sideview mirror of the car, memories of the past 2 months, the anticipation to see my girls again and rejoining Habitat are quickly fading along in the distance. 'So long future 3 months!' Loosing faith that is until the Enemy (Delta), becomes the Allie. It took a day of recooperation, 1 massive migraine and a dent in my travel tissues to recreate my departure (with minimal damage at that). I'm drained and I'm tired, I'm content for now. Right now all I need is to let go of the breath that I've been holding onto and exhale.
Shoop, shoop, shoop, shoop-be-doop.
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