When did they install all those airport outlets? And since when were the lines to the bathroom so short? Also, the normally long check-in lines were suddenly so short.  And that Starbucks coffee! It smelled so good!

Those kids in front of us on line? How cute! I love those wheelie suitcases they each had. I blurted out to their parents how cute their kids were.

The seats on the plane were made of leather and were extremely comfortable. The leg space was amazing and to think that this airline doesn’t even boast about their legroom! And no one even bothered us about where we put our carry-on luggage. Overhead compartment or under the seat in front of us? No big deal.

There was a child in front of us who was chattering on the flight. Normally, I would be just a tad bothered by it because I needed my sleep. Not this time. I found myself listening to her every word, and chuckling with my husband (who was trying to sleep, come to think of it) about how cute she was.

The pilot thanked us for flying this airline. Do they always do that? I never noticed before. Our luggage came right away, I think.

In spite of the traffic on the way from the airport, I enjoyed the scenery from our rental car. When we reached our destination  we were served a delicious breakfast by our hosts.  I was ready to get back in the car and visit friends.

My husband? He asked if he could sleep for just an hour. I said okay, fine.

Me, I was so excited that while removing something from the car, I twisted my shoulder and felt a pain.

“Everything that hurts will feel completely fine today,” our hostess commented when she saw me holding my shoulder.

How right she was. We were there to celebrate the engagement of our son to our new daughter-in-law. This auspicious occasion stirred such happiness, gratitude and warmth in my heart that everything around me just blossomed.

This glass-half-full attitude was weirdly in contrast to my airport story about 3 weeks prior.   In fact, I even wrote about it a few days ago on this post.

Well, now that I’m home for about a week, I’m thinking about this. While I still am on a relative high about our son’s engagement and the happy occasion, I do realize that everything is about perspective. I think I’ve come down to earth (by some definition of that).

Every day of our lives, events, comments, issues, problems, and personalities fly by our faces. We  have no control over all that is whirring about us.

When we are in a good space inside ourselves we perceive things around us as relatively positive. Even if we are faced with a problem, we can reframe that in a more positive way because we are in a happy frame of mind.

By contrast, when we are feeling non-centered or “off” for whatever reason, we may color all our other side experiences with dark-colored glasses. Our negative sense of self colors everything around us.

On the plane trip home, we stopped off in San Francisco. Somehow the stopover didn’t bother me. I charged my phone, relaxed into the comfortable (vinyl? leather?) airport chairs and ate our snacks.

Back on the next plane, another cute kid called the older man in front of her “Pop” and started an entire conversation with him. She even complimented me on my new shoes! She talked about food that was passed around on the plane as having “too much salt” and “too many tri-glycerides.”

Every day of our lives, our mind takes us on trips. Do we go the positive route or do we go the negative route? We have a choice, as I did. Sometimes, what’s going on in our lives – for better or worse – colors our perceptions of the reality. But if we are aware of that, we can temper our reactions to the here and now.

And maybe, just maybe we can refrain from complaining (too much) when things seem hard. And when things are really  good, we can (talking to myself here) try not to gush too much (if that’s possible!)

Because that’s what I did to that cute girl’s mother, “Oh my gosh, your daughter is just the cutest!”

I think she liked the compliment, but still….