It’s just a little detour

December 27^th 2022

4:30 am.  I’m still awake. I know Matt and the kids are up and heading to the airport for their 6:00 am flight to Liberia, Costa Rica. I still can’t quite fathom I’m not going with them.  The National Passport Agency doesn’t open until 8:00 am… I’m counting down the moments until it opens, but also hopeful for another round of sleep before this day begins. The office was closed yesterday, so we were unable to get any kind of information about what the process to get an expedited passport looks like. I know there is an office in Atlanta, and I suppose with my rose-colored glasses on I’m expecting to be able to get a same day appointment there.  HA

8:00- I did doze again after hearing from Matt that they were officially on the airplane. I guess it was ultimately the mothers worry that was keeping me up.  Now that I got that 45 minute early morning nap after lying awake most of the night…. I feel like an absolute zombie. I’m groggy and have a headache and am trying to get a grip on what I’m supposed to be doing. Our room has piles and piles of mess on every imaginable surface, I just stare at it all trying to make sense of where I can find some clean clothes.  I get on the phone to the passport agency and am met with a 10-20 minute wait time.  Guess I wasn’t the only desperate citizen counting down the minutes to get an agent on the line.    I am finally greeted and it goes a little something like this. 

“Hello, when is your international flight?”  “Well ….. it was supposed to be at 6:00 am this morning, but I was unable to go because my passport is expired”. “Okay, well when is your new flight out of the country” “Uhhhh….. I don’t know?  I feel like that is entirely dependent on when I’m able to get a passport.”  “Well, you have to have proof of international flight to get an appointment” “Okay, So I’m just supposed to pick a day and hope it works out in time?”  “If you want an appointment you have to have proof of an international flight”.  Okay….. well this is going around in circles. It seems crazy to me to just pick a day and buy a ticket and hope for the best. I don’t see how she’s not understanding the conundrum of buying a flight without a passport……. at this point I don’t know if it’s going to take a day or 3 weeks to get it.    In an effort to move the conversation along I pick Friday December 30^{th …}  what I think is probably an overly optimistic date, but I’m just trying to play the game at this point, maybe if I tell her something super soon she will find me the earliest appointment possible.  Okay, “well there are no appointments available at the Atlanta office until mid-January”. 

 WOW. Couldn’t we have started there?!  I’m losing my mind now for the first time since this curveball came my way.  Mid-January?  That would mean the family would be 3ish weeks deep into the trip without me, or worse… calling the whole thing off. My heart sinks….   “Would you like me to look at other offices?”  The light starts to peak through again…. Other offices, great idea!   She proceeds to looks at New Orleans and Buffalo NY.    They both had earlier January appointments, but… that is still not good enough.  “Once I get the appointment how long does it take to get the passport?” “Every agency is different”.    Alright, I’m done with this lady.    I hang up and go into pure panic mode.  Matt and the kids have landed in Miami by this time, and he is checking in on my progress.  I’m afraid I have no good news to share.  We debate cancelling the whole thing and him and the kids turning around in Miami.   NO, NO. I’m not going down that easy. My desire to runaway from everything is too strong to back down to a grumpy Passport Agent.

 I call again…… this time I get someone new on the phone.  Conversation starts the same way with the same attitude (I don’t think these agents love their job)  “Bla, Bla……. I missed my flight, I don’t have a flight, I want a passport so I can book a flight, my family is in another country without me, PLEASE HELP”. This lady somehow magically comes up with an available appointment in El, Paso Texas… tomorrow…     9:30 am……YIIPPPEEEE “Ma’am do you want the appointment?”   Yes, yes of course I do, but how realistic is it to get to El Paso by the end of the day?? I’m trying to run through the logistics in my mind of what will have to happen to get there… are there even available flights? I can feel the impatience burning through the airwaves from the other end of the line.  I accept.

  I take the appointment not knowing what I’m about to put myself through to get there.  My next hour is spent trying to find a flight to El Paso and a new flight to Costa Rica, because I MUST have proof of that to get in for my appointment.  Still no one has been able to tell me how long the process takes….. a day? two days? A week?  I feel like I’m just going on a wing and prayer at this point.  By some small miracle I’m able to get the last seat on the last flight to El Paso that evening…… I cringe at the price and pull the trigger…. I have no other option that I can figure. This is my only shot at getting to Costa Rica and not blowing the trip for everyone. I will do whatever it takes…..  In my short but intense hour of research and booking, I now have a flight to Texas, TONIGHT (dec 27), a hotel to stay in for two nights in El Paso, a passport appointment tomorrow 9:30 am (weds dec 28), a return flight to Atlanta on Thursday (dec 29) (because no reasonable flight from El Paso to Costa Rica) and believe it or not…. a flight to Costa Rica on Friday December 30^th.  What a horribly expensive oversite this has been.

I’m sure everyone is curious how we could have possibly missed that my passport was expired.  It’s like the golden rule of international travel… make sure your passport is good to go. Simply put, it’s the same reason we burned out this year…. we are overwhelmed and managing too much and not doing any of it well. We are always scrambling, and rushed, a million things on the brain at one time, and it got overlooked. When I rounded up the kids’ passports for this trip Matt informed me he already had mine, that it had been in his work bag since the last time we traveled. That was news to me, I thought it had been filed away in its safe place this whole time. He handled all the bookings for this trip and so I never even laid eyes on my passport until that fateful morning in the hotel room.  He feels terrible that he missed it, says he looked at it at least 3 or 4 times and it just didn’t register. I could have easily prompted a “hey did you check to make sure we aren’t expired?” but I didn’t, I just made an assumption and carried on. It was a collective fail.

It just is what it is. I’m not mad, I’m not even sad, I’m just doing.  Head down, do what you gotta do, no time for emotions or negative feelings…. This whole trip is a giant privilege and I have no room for despairing over a set back. I’m rolling with it, and hey, look at this…I’m on a little solo strike mission. When does that ever happen?  My wheels are already turning… What does El Paso have going on? Outside of being a border town, I must admit I have no idea… how exciting! Now, if everything goes off absolutely perfectly…. I will be reunited with the fam in sunny Costa Rica by Friday.