Stately Travel

Thanksgiving is about thanks and giving. Hence, the name. So, as I sit here at the entryway to another precious holiday period, I reflect on the thanks I have in my life and the givingness of it all. And I realize, I am thankful to have my job, my health and my happiness, but it's all starting to give me agita.

Yesterday was another busy day of movement in which I found myself traveling through three different states: denial, shock and disbelief.

Denial began somewhere in Michigan, as I thought about how all of the people at work that used to report to me don't anymore. They report to somebody else. And how all of the accounts I had been running from the Los Angeles office, I won’t be anymore. They are being run out of the east coast offices now. I refused to believe that everything could change so quickly. I denied that my job had suddenly morphed into something completely different on such short notice - and how I had no fucking idea what the job now was. So I continued on with my day of meetings and onto my flights to the next state in complete and utter denial that anything had changed.

Then, of course, the arrival in Atlanta, Georgia escorted me into the state of shock. As I got off the plane with the initial tidbits of anger about my new job transformation just creeping into my psyche, I learned that the very big, high profile Times Square event we were putting on that evening was falling apart. I was in complete shock to hear that the vendor we've been relying on for months was able to screw something up so tremendously. And this wasn’t your normal everyday screw up. I mean, this vendor had to go out of their way to really try and screw this up so badly. Was I angry? Hell, I had passed angry so damn quickly I barely recognized it. I was so angry, I couldn’t speak. All I could do was stand there and shake. I was in complete shock as I learned about the multitude of ways that this vendor suddenly made my work life a living hell. With what little stronghold on reality that I had remaining, I boarded my connecting flight and took my seat, staring out the window in a virtual catatonic state.

By the time I walked off the plane in Tampa, Florida, the state of shock had morphed into a state of disbelief. It was one in the morning and I felt like I’d been on a whirlwind trip for the past 36 hours. Los Angeles to Chicago to Kalamazoo to Detroit to Atlanta to Tampa. Five cities, five states, two days. Within that time, my job had changed dramatically, one of my main clients became severely pertrubed and amidst it all I had four meetings and a presentation to a roomful of twenty rabid advertising folks. I reflected on the serenity that encompassed my life a mere year ago. The ease and comfort of it all that I consciously traded for this traveling mayhem. It appears that I may have struck a deal with the devil.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner.
And, yes, I am thankful. But it’s giving me heart palpitations.