I made it! I'm "home" for Christmas with four minutes to spare!

[SkyGirl]

Wow.  What a day!  I've worked Christmas Day flights for the past seven years, but today was the best ever.  If I can't be with my family on Christmas, then I am grateful to have such wonderful passengers to spend the day with!

The people who fly during holiday seasons are not frequent flyers.  They sometimes haven't flown in years.  They don't know that peanuts, pillows and meals are things of the past.  They bring bottles of liquor, large tubes of toothpaste, scissors, corkscrews, big jars of night cream in their carry-on baggage.  And they don't understand why the TSA takes it away from them.  By the time they get on the plane, they are frazzled, hungry and sometimes very angry.  It's falls to the flight attendants to take good care of them and make them feel better.  And, on holidays?  It can be tough, because passengers are ALSO dealing with family issues and money issues and...

That's why, once I get over the not being with family thing (and you EXers know I had a hard time with that this past Thanksgiving!), I love being a flight attendant who gives a crap about how people FEEL on my flights! 

Today was CRAZY. 

5am: Portland, OR, to Denver.  Sit in Denver airport for almost four hours until next flight. (Um...unpaid hours) 

Then Denver to Orlando:  Delayed an hour.  FULL of children  (as are all flights to Mickey Mouse's home) who had not slept last night, were now sugared up, and had painful plugged ears during take-off and descent.  Lots of crying!  Also, a radar warning alarm went off during this flight (unbeknownst to passengers) indicating a problem with the radar system.  Not good.  Landed okay in Orlando. 

Orlando to Washington, DC was delayed while mechanics worked on radar system.  Finally took off with crabby passengers at about 8pm.  I declared all drinks free due to our delay and to Christmas spirit (pun completely intended).  Challenged my crew to get a smile out of any crabby passenger, with a bottle of wine to the flight attendant who turned the most people's attitudes around. 

Then...a medical emergency.  Passenger who couldn't breathe.  No doctors on board.  We administered oxygen, had the cockpit call for paramedics to meet plane upon arrival in Washington, DC.  Landed about 10pm and had to hold passengers onboard for 15 minutes, awaiting paramedics.  This is no big deal.  I deal with medical emergencies onboard all the time. But this was Christmas night and these passengers wanted to GO HOME.  I hated holding them onboard after we landed, but that is standard protocol and it's not up to me to circumvent it!  Finally, everyone was allowed to leave.  INCLUDING ME!!

I arrived at my DC condo, which is not my REAL home, but I still love Northern Virginia!  I looked at the clock and I realized that I had just a few minutes to jump on EX and wish you all a Very Merry Christmas.  Now...it's taken me quite a while to write this, so by the time this posts, it's well after midnight and Christmas is over. 

Deep sigh.  I know a lot of women here are sad tonight.  We wish we were younger.  We wish we'd made better choices.  We wish our children were young again and didn't know what fallible humans we really are.  We wish we'd planned better for our future.  We wish that Christmas was just like it used to be when a pretty tree, lots of presents and a family together made everything perfect, even if only for a day.  AND...we wished we'd never started smoking.  Smoking defined us for a long time. 

But time marches on.  And things change.  WE change.  Thank goodness that we have the strength to change  Some people never do.  HERE?  We make new friends.  Sometimes...Forever Friends.  (xxxooo to mine!)

But YOU and I are CHANGING. We have made an incredible choice to overcome nicotine.  It isn't easy and it often isn't fun (although you might change your mind if you attend our next online party, heeheehee).  All of us here at EX have "tools" to help you succeed.  Please take advantage of them, Newbies.  Success is a victory hard-won.  Give us credit for knowing how to quit smoking and please please please follow the advice the Elders and EXperts give you. 

If someone told that you could make a million dollars, GUARANTEED, if you followed their advice...you would do it, right? 

... Is a million dollars worth MORE to you than living a longer life?

More than knowing you have been strong enough to beat your nicotine addiction? 

More than feeling incredibly proud of yourself as you make it through another day without cigarettes? 

More than knowing that your family is so proud of you while they see you finally taking the steps to be a non-smoker?

More than being able to take deeper breaths of fresh air and not coughing like crazy every morning when you wake up?

I would be astonished if any person could read the above, and still say that they would rather smoke than have these wonderful, loving things in their lives.

This blog is too long!  Ooops.  Sorry.  I hope a lot of you here read it and comment...

I love EX.  It saved my life.  I will do anything I can to pass that gift on...