It was 4:30 pm, Sue and I were waiting for our plane to board on our way back home from Baltimore. On the loudspeaker we heard an attendant announce that there would be a "slight" delay due to a few "mechanical" problems they were checking out. As we feared, those few "mechanical" things were taking more than a few minutes to check out. After about an hour of waiting, we were fairly certain we would miss our Kansas City connection, and would not be getting home anytime soon. Standing near the airline counter at the gate, we had no idea what we were going to do. We were frustrated and disheartened, and hoping someone would come rescue us. As the woman from customer service began to describe our options, we noticed several other people listening intently and asking important questions about getting back to California. I chimed in with a question or two of my own and all of a sudden I felt differently about our predicament. I no longer felt alone against the world (or in this case, the airlines). Other fellow Californians had the same questions, the same challenges and the same concerns. We were now a team. A few people asked similar questions I was wondering about. We still had our difficulty but our struggle was now shared. Sometimes, asking for help is seen as a sign of weakness. But actually, this is the way we are made. It is the isolation that is the anomaly. We grow in strength as we stand together, rather than detached. We feel supported when we recognize that we are a part of a larger community facing similar anxieties or worries. It is hard to get past our fears or our shyness. But once we do, everything can change. We are no longer standing alone and that even makes a long two days of flying more bearable.
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