The Trip to CO, Into the Wild, and more

Well,
I am officially here in our beautiful home in Westcliffe, CO. It is 10:50 here which means only 9:50 CA time so I am ready for my night to begin, but my sisters are in bed reading and my dad is asleep. So...although I am whining about my family's sleeping schedule it is a perfect time for me to do some blogging!!!!!! Hell yeah!!!! Today has been a day of change. I typically welcome change in my life despite the strees that it can cause. I started this morning at about 8:30 and got ready to drive about 2 hours down to Ontario, CA for my flight. God answered my prayers of little traffic for which I am grateful since I left 15 minutes later than I had hoped. The parking lot by the airport made me feel like I was the last man alive after the apocalypse. There was a giant 1 story building that seemed to be shut down, and the parking lot was full of cars with not 1 person in sight. It was kind of eerie. Anyways, my bus driver was pretty friendly and dropped me off at the ExpressJet terminal and I quickly proceeded through check-in and customs in about 20 minutes total. The man who checked my I.D. and pass told me a funny joke along the way due to him spotting the instrument on my back. He said, "what do you get when a piano falls down a mining shaft." "I don't know I said." "You get a flat miner?" Pretty good joke if you ask me. I had about an hour to kill so I walked to the end of the terminal to the restroom. The man next to me in the stall was clearly having gas issues and after each fart let out a loud. Auuuuurgggghhhhh as if he was relieved/felt like a badass? It was pretty comical. Sorry for the potty humor. The most exciting part of my travel was the interaction I had will this family of three of which two were in front of me, the father and the 18 mo. old Victoria Lee "Tori" and the mother who sat across the aisle. The family was probably not a very wealthy family given the dental hygeine and clothing, and this would not be relevant had it not been for some of the changes that are going on inside me....
Last night I watched Into the Wild which was a really good movie and even better book, but the reason my interaction on the flight had significance was due to some of what I learned during the movie. Alex/Chris meets a great couple who's names are Jan and Edaine. They were kind of hick meets white trash, but Chris/Alex becomes great friends with these people and learns/teaches them. He does not care who they are, what they have done, NOR what they look like, he meets them and becomes family. I thought about this part of the story while I was on the plane, and I wondered who I felt like I related to more on the plane. Whether it was the pretty rich girl just across from Tori or the family who seemed to love eachother very much and were from a different social group than me. I think I related better to the latter. I enjoyed watching the family interact and how loving the father (who had a sweet mullet by the way) was to his little girl as she screamed her head off during takeoff and landing, because she did not want to sit still. I even got to play about 20 minutes of peek-a-boo and funny faces with Tori as she persistently would put her head over the back of her seat. I think I was somewhat of a relief to the parents as my silly games kept her distracted 90% of the landing. The mother and father and I exchanged great smiles and laughs each time Tori would chuckle and bury her head in her daddy when I booed. The interesting thing to note was how as the family was initially taking their seats, I felt as if we were going to have some sort of connection or cool interaction during the flight, and once again praise the Lord for this little time. The mother and I got to talk for a short bit about Victoria Lee and what a sweet spirit she was and how she thought she was already two. I told her a tiny bit about Westmont, and she told me a bit about her family and it was just a cool time. I want to keep that family in my thoughts, so what better way to do it than through this blog.
The reason this was so impactful to me was the fact that I understood better not only my walls and prejudices, but how with an open mind and the Lord, those could be broken, and I could relate to more people than I think. I know that I am not alone in this world, I am not the only one who fears being alone, and I know that God has a plan for that family and for me. I want to keep the kind words of the mother in my mind when she said, "Good luck with everything" as I walked to the front of the plane. And I pray the same for them. Especially cute little Tori.