Being who you're supposed to be

I logged on to Delta.com seeing for the first time in a decade that I didn't have a plane ticket for anywhere.

It gave me pause ... I had nowhere to go ... no place to be other than here ... no one was expecting anything of me.

I'd just been divorced and had left a career but old habits die hard and I'm not sure why on that day but I whipped out the I-phone and hit the Flight Status app and ... I didn't have one.

It was a very cathartic moment.

Wandering outside to the Beloved Back deck, I sat and pondered. Work no longer defined who I am. The relationship I'd given myself to had cashed in the chips and took them with her. For decades I was a very public figure, always in the news, giving speeches, writing books and fielding request to do something or the other.

Now the phone didn't ring, there were no invitations in the mail and many, many people who used to want something from me had moved on to wanting it from somebody else.

I was feeling pretty rotten about it all.

On a warm winter day I poured myself a glass of wine, meandered out to the back deck and propped my bare brown feet on the rail.

Holding my I-phone to my lips, I felt it rise from deep inside of me somewhere. Then it all happened quickly.

I hit Delta.com and booked for St. Martin ... twice! It was time to move.

Then I booked a flight to Pittsburgh on the suspicion that something might be there. There was an old invitation to go to Dallas so I bought that ticket too. Then an email came asking if I could be in St. Paul? Impulsively I bought that ticket too.

I was burning through the bank account but it felt right somehow.

Godly almost. "Hey Abram, you old man," God yelled, "get off thine ass as go! ... It'll be great!"

And the old man was foolish enough to listen.

It worked out for him so I figured it may work for me ... and it did.

I spent a month on an island that I love and was loved dearly by it and friends who had vague notions of what I'd done for a living or who I'd been with. Pittsburgh led to a contract that took me from Alaska to San Juan, Santa Barbara to Cleveland ... and others I don't remember anymore. It ended up being a terrific spring, summer and fall.

So yesterday I did it again. There were no outstanding obligations to go anywhere. I did have stuff to do but was itching for adventures.

Firing up the computer we went to Delta.com. and am returning to St. Martin soon. Then it's off to Washington state for a wedding I'd promised to do for Conner (and I'd do anything for Conner), now it may be Mexico (sounds so sweet that I just got to go). Oh yeah ... a presentation in Philadelphia is in there.

So I'm burning through what's left in the bank account but ... it's time to go.

It'll all work out. It always does. May as well have fun while its making its way to working out.

Besides, it's Biblical.

Get off thine ass and go ... be who you're supposed to be.