67: A Little Jolt of Joy – Finding Perspective & Staying Positive

Perspective and the Lost Luggage

A little jolt of joy today about staying positive through inconvenience, and where that habit actually comes from for me. When I was ten, my oldest sister was killed in a hit-and-run while walking home from school, she was fourteen. That knowledge, that life can change in an instant and no one is promised tomorrow, has stayed with me ever since. Grief isn’t something you get through so much as something you learn to live alongside, and it resurfaces differently at different stages of life, as a child, as an adult, as a parent watching my own kids reach fourteen. But one thing it gave me early on is a clear sense that time is the one thing none of us actually have control over, so it feels wasteful to spend much of it stuck in worry, frustration, or anger. Those feelings are valid when something upsetting happens, they’re just not worth dwelling in.

A last hurrah at Disney

My family recently took what felt like our last trip together as just the six of us, before life shifts further with graduations, careers, and eventually, hopefully, new family members down the road. It was a genuinely cherished trip. On our last day, with a flight scheduled for early evening, we got word our plane was delayed five hours. My brain went straight to the inconvenience of it, tight timing to get kids back to college, an early class the next morning. But then it clicked: we suddenly had five unplanned hours back at Disney. So we grabbed park-hopper passes and packed in everything we’d missed, rides, food, transportation, one last full sweep of it all.

Then the real test arrived

We landed in Atlanta at 11:40 PM to find baggage claim in total chaos, hundreds of abandoned bags, a skeleton night crew handling nine flights’ worth of luggage at once. We waited hours, eventually sent our son on ahead to drive back for his early class, and finally gave up and drove the hour home ourselves, arriving at 3:30 AM only to get a notification that our bags had finally surfaced. My husband and teenage son turned right back around and drove to retrieve everything, getting home at 5 AM.

Choosing where to land

In the moment, there was room to be furious. But the staff working that night had no more capacity than what they had, there was no one to be angry at who could have done anything differently. And in the end, it was all just stuff, replaceable stuff. Perspective matters here: this wasn’t catastrophic. Nobody was leaving people behind, only things, and things are recoverable in a way that matters far less than family and time together.

Feeling the frustration is allowed

None of this means suppressing the initial irritation. Of course a five-hour delay and a 3 AM arrival is frustrating, and it’s fine to feel that in the moment. But it doesn’t have to be where you stay. Everyone you encounter in a frustrating situation, gate agents, baggage staff, is carrying their own story and doing what they can with what they’ve been given, same as you are in that moment.

A question worth asking mid-frustration

When something goes sideways, ask yourself: will this be a funny story later, once it’s resolved? If the honest answer is yes, it’s worth settling into that knowledge now rather than waiting until the story’s already over to laugh about it. And a small practical tip from this trip, if a suitcase ever gets seriously delayed and someone needs to get somewhere without it, shipping the bag can end up cheaper than the extra gas and stress of another retrieval trip.

Until next time, continue to choose joy.