Snacking on Elephants

Well, it finally happened.  Fifteen months on the road, the last 7 of which have been on the opposite coast, and I had hands down, the worst days of travel in my entire life.  On Tuesday morning I was to catch a plane in Reno at 10:40.  I awoke to a message we would leave at 11:15, from there it was a series of 15 minute delays, pushing the flight further and further back like some sort of Chinese water torture.  At first, I really didn't mind.  I was to have a four hour layover in Dallas anyway, so doing that delay from my hotel room in Reno meant less time in Dallas, or so I thought.  Well, let's just say by the time the airline was done delaying flight one, my whole layover in Dallas had evaporated and I was down to a whopping 14 minutes.  Looking for guidance, I made the mistake of asking the gate agent what to do.  Was I going to make it?  Without even checking or offering alternatives, I got a simple,"You can try."  Well, there was...

 You may be asking yourself where I have been with a little gap in posting.  Well....it happened.  I rang in 2024 with two significant events.  First, this is the first year I dove into without my parents as my mom died some years back, and my father tragically passed of COVID in October.  All I have remaining for parental guidance is a kind and loving stepmom who, two months after the death of my father, was diagnosed with breast cancer.  As if that were not enough, I spent my New Years shivering and coughing, barely able to move, sick with a third round of COVID.  With that, it brought back all of the side effects of my two previous infections, higher blood pressure, racing heart and even a round of shingles.  To be honest, it felt a bit like that elephant in the room, as I refer to my journey to good health, no longer had the small bites I had taken out of it in the months leading in, rather it had actually grown in size become quite ferocious ...