Sun rise and stress set

To say that I was "stressed" when I boarded the plane at Logan, would be the understatement of the last decade. Though I was excited beyond belief to travel - anywhere really - my jaw was actually sore from gnashing my teeth together.

I had arrived extra early and had the opportunity to watch the sun greet the day. Propping myself up against the window, I took comfort in a mixture of 90's alternative melodies kick-starting my adventure as the horizon line was enveloped with a prism of colors that started to reflect across the blacktop of iron birds. Slurping my iced caffeinated cup of perfection, I wished intently that my responsibilities would stop dominating the affections of my thought processes. I'm not good at relaxing. I've never been one to possess a "quiet mind" and it must have been apparent to the woman who opted to soak up some of the sun's rising rays next to me.

"Isn't it beautiful," she said in more of a declaration than a question.

"Boston never disappoints," I responded with a smirk.

Despite having my headphones on and it being so early in the morning, this stranger proved to be a pleasant distraction. She was a nurse and had a family, but I guessed that. She seemed to like that I could pick up on the unspoken conversation as well. Though I could not detect her Oregonian(?) accent, we kept up the back-and-forth guessing until we revealed what brought us to Boston. It's pretty amazing what you'll tell a stranger that you know you'll never see again. Her mother was sick and she knew this would be the last time she'd ever get to see her again. It came on suddenly and because of that, the cheapest journey would cost her more than a day of traveling on FOUR different flights. The sadness she felt knowing that it would be the last time clearly affected her. It affected me and I didn't know either of them. It made me realize how lucky I was to have my biggest concern - at least at that very moment - be that I could not relax.

The woman that was seated next to me on the flight shared a similar confidence in herself and her family, but she too wasn't flying for pleasure. Her mother had already passed. The flight was also last-minute and she was going to be the last of her siblings to arrive in celebrating her mother's life. She was the dean at a school and spoke about not living in regret. Talk about being put in the right place at the right time.

"You want to do something? Do it. The world is a big, beautiful place. There is so much to see and I think that, especially as women, we forget that," she said to me, not in a condescending way, but from a plateau of experience. "And don't settle. Not for work. Not for fun. And definitely not for love. It's out there and you'll find it."

I'm not sure how she did it, but she had all the right words to say to guide me on the adventure that I was about to embark. As I closed my eyes, I did so with a little more ease, knowing that the next time I would open them would be in sunny Phoenix, Arizona, before heading on a road trip to Las Vegas.