DAY 28: Crossing Bridges

So.......I've dropped Adam off at the airport and done the predictable crying session. I'm emotional and I know it. One of my rituals when leaving people at the airport is to stay until I see the plane take off and it is a mere dot in the sky. It gives me closure. I once left Grant at the airport and didn't stay to see his plane leave and I can't begin to tell you how disjointed I felt until he returned so I need to see this little ritual through everytime and I understand that.

BUT.....Adam's plane reversed and meandered down the runway and I waited to see it taxi off and take half my beating heart away from me (the other half was trying to make her targets at work). And I waited.......and I waited......and it turned left and I never saw it again. For all I know, it's still there!!

At this point, you need to refer to the previous paragraph about having closure and my heart started beating faster. WHAT was I going to do if his plane took off in the opposite direction and I didn't get closure. So I ran to another window? Nothing! No plane.....fast forward 15 minutes and the realisation that his plane had taken off without me witnessing it.....so I adapted the situation and manifested my OCD to the Air NZ flight that was taking off. How stoopid is that? The tears came for a flight that DIDN'T contain my son and wasn't even going in the same direction that HIS plane was....*shakes head and shrugs with confusion*... but my eyes needed to see A PLANE taking off to consolidate with my brain and heart that a big steel bird was taking one of my children away.

Anyway, I was meeting Cres and Chelle at Highpoint Shopping Centre (story's too long to explain why but it involves Borders collapse and a gift voucher...*waves hand*...it's not important) but I've never been there before so I trusted my not-to-be-trusted iPhone Maps application in the silly notion that it would lead me to Consumer Mecca.

So I followed the purple line on my phone and at no stage did it occur to me that the route was getting a little scenic for, what was meant to be a 15 minute drive from the airport. I ended up on The Boulevard near Maribyrnong River (Afton Street, to be exact) and the phone came to a bridge - coincidentally name The Afton Street Bridge (genius!!) -  and told me to cross it. Cross the bridge??? I need you to picture me, in Gee's little Mazda MX5, parked on the side of the road staring and blinking back and forth to my phone, to the bridge, to my phone, to the bridge, back to the phone.....because I was looking at a WALKING BRIDGE people.....

Enter Other Shaz. She whispers in my ear "I reckon, if you reverse and do a run-up, you can clear it, you know"

I was emotional because the passenger seat which HAD contained my son was now glaringly empty and now????...I was staring at a pedestrian bridge when I was IN A CAR....FFS!! and I was supposed to be meeting people in ....err....10 minutes ago????

WHAT WAS wrong with this stoopid iPhone??? Why did it mislead me when it KNEW I was deranged with heartache???? And then, the answer.

I had accidentally hit the 'pedestrian' instructions on the iPhone instead of the 'car' instructions.....DOH! You know when you have that moment of realisation?? OMG?? I'm not stupid? Despite second guessing the likelihood that I COULD possibly take the bridge a la Bond style and make it in time?

So now you're thinking "How is this related to Gratitude and/or Happiness?".....Yeah, well it isn't. But that was my day today and I'm taking literary licence of my blog and having a revolutionary moment by digressing from the theme and writing about what I WANNA WRITE ABOUT, OKAAAAAAY??