I received a text from a dear friend asking me if I could pick her up at the airport in a couple of days. Her flight got in at around 11pm or so, but she is a dear friend, and she has helped me with airport rides in the past, so there was no way I was going to let her down.
At least with the late hour, the Los Angeles freeways are fairly free and clear, so the ride there was relatively smooth. Getting into the airport, however, was an entirely different scenario. They were blocking off lanes and trimming the path going into the airport from three lanes, down to one. Once inside the LAX horse shoe shaped drive, it got even worse, or so I thought. As it turned out, the worst part was the getting back out again.
I picked up my friend, and she instantly warned me that she may have had a couple of cocktails on the plane, and that it was also possible she may have embarrassed herself by talking to the “hot guy” somewhere along the line. (He was standing on the curb waiting to be picked up, which she immediately pointed out, and he was definitely a strikingly good-looking man by anyone’s standards.) She may have been feeling good, but she wasn’t drunk, maybe just feeling good enough to take some chances.
I was a bit impatient about getting out of there. I was hoping to be back home by at least 1am, and the Parking Spot vans and the rest of the traffic were not acquiescing to my desires in a timely enough fashion.
Then my friend, who was feeling a little more uninhibited than usual, perhaps, took one of those chances.
“So…At the risk of possibly upsetting you, I was wondering if I could say some things to you…”
Ominous sort of sentence, isn’t it?
She let me know that she loves me. I didn’t really need the affirmation, as we are very close and comfortable with one another, but I appreciated the sentiment nonetheless. It was a long drive back to her place, and she used the entirety of the trip to let me know a few things, in which she said things like:
“I feel like you’re wasting your talents.” And, “Sometimes, I look at you, and I think, ‘What’s wrong with you?’, and I just want to shake you! You know I love you, right? But seriously, what are you doing? I’ve seen what you can do, and you’re just not doing it!”
I professed my innocence against some of my supposed crimes, but there was no wiggle room. My trying of this or that to make money, or my focus (maybe foci, I’m a little ADD sometimes) on “projects” or “ideas” was all just an attempt to keep me from looking at the real wasting of my abilities I’ve been doing, according to her. (She’s right, by the way.)
My friend lives about a half hour’s drive from my place, and about 45 minutes or so from the airport (which was over an hour when you factor in the traffic delays at LAX), and it was definitely a “come to Jesus” talk for the first leg of the journey.
I dropped her off, saw her safely into her home, and we hugged, and she made sure that I knew that all she said was out of love. I knew.
The second leg of my journey, the lonely car ride home, was one of the more reflective states in which I have found myself in quite some time. Almost immediately upon arriving home, there was a text message from my friend, again, reassuring me that I was loved, and a declaration of hope that I took it all in stride. I had.
I crawled into bed, happy to be home, but happier still to just rest and recoup from the very loving, spiritual ass-whooping I received from a sweet messenger trying to help me see.
I awoke the next morning to another text, but it wasn’t from my airport friend. It said:
“Gio, I’ve been tapping into your energy lately, and it’s all over the place! What’s going on? And how can I help?”
I’ll explain the “Gio” moniker in the next post, but needless to say this certainly grabbed my attention. Especially considering the previous two conversations, things were getting almost unbelievable. Almost.
Spiritual Satori 