“You have to come to your closed doors
before you get to your open doors.”
— Joel Osteen
I have started to travel again. Though I am rusty in my pre-trip preparations, I am like a kid in a candy store with the discovery of the changes that have occurred in the world beyond my neighborhood during my two-year absence from airports.
After sixteen years of regularly commuting to New York City for work, I found LaGuardia had finally finished its new construction and renovations. I was bedazzled!
I am a simple girl who loves wandering and experiencing new things. My eyes delighted in the thoughtful design and new shops and spaces to explore around every corner.
It was obvious that NYC has been deeply impacted by the pandemic — closed restaurants and quieter office buildings everywhere I walked. I also witnessed the tenacity of those who struggled through to reinvent themselves and their businesses.
The global pandemic brought with it trauma, pain, and sacrifice. However, the many conversations I had with friendly strangers were about the things for which we are grateful, the way our lives have changed for the positive, and our appreciation for every large and small gesture of kindness.
I found people making eye contact with smiles and greetings, holding doors for each other, and generously sharing words of courtesy.
Have we rediscovered the power of civility?
Does it take a pandemic, civil disquiet, and the threat of war overseas to cause us to pull together and find our common ground and kinder nature?
I made friends again in the airport security line. While I waited to board the plane home, a woman complimented me on my silver, shoulder-length hair. I shared with her that I let the natural coloring appear during the first year of social-distancing and that I have embraced the new me with platinum hair. I let go of hair appointments and hair coloring, a closet full of clothes, and many things from my previous way of living. I transitioned into a variety of approaches to working, living, and re-imagining my future.
Now I wonder if I should consider a Volkswagen bus for making the cross-country trip that has always been on my bucket list.
What habit or routine have you shed during the pandemic?
In what new ways has your life been enriched?
How has your future horizon opened new considerations?
I still love to visit new places, connect with old friends, make new friends, and discover the world is filled with good people.
At the same time, I loved becoming a homebody. Yet this most recent trip made me realize I haven’t lost my taste for being a vagabond. I am learning and living into the next phase of my life — it is different than I had imagined.
For me, the challenge and change have opened as many doors as they have closed.
What unexpected door are you walking through?
Leslie
“When one door closes, another opens;
but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door
that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
―
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