2023: The Year in Retrospect
This has been a rough year! It started out just fine. I took my annual MLK weekend trip to Poland, including a side trip to Berlin. I had a slew of other trips planned including a solo trip to Zanzibar, Dar Es Salaam, and Doha on the spectacular Qatar Airways Q-suites late March and my family trip to Istanbul and Japan (that I had planned and rescheduled several times since 2020) during the month of June. But unfortunately, my travel plans were aborted when I ended up injuring both of my feet in a grilling accident (don’t ask!). One of my feet healed quickly and well; the other one, not so much.
It was late March, two days before I was flying to Doha when I figured I’d visit a podiatrist just to make sure my foot was healing fine. I had a slight limp (which I attributed to the actual injury) but I felt just fine. I was fully expecting a “give it some time, it’ll be fine response.” Wrong! The podiatrist took one look at my foot and said that my foot was severely infected and that he would need to operate on it immediately. Like, the next day. I was told to go straight to the ER and get ready for surgery. This was at 2pm… on a school day. Luckily, I convinced him to give me at least until 6pm to get my affairs in order and to turn myself in (like a common criminal preparing to go to jail for some time). And the rest is history.
Five months, four surgeries, dozens of doctors and home nurse visits later, and I still haven’t been cleared to travel. After basically growing a new foot, I still have a little ways to go before I’m cleared to travel again. Unfortunately, over this time, I’ve missed out on so much: my oldest daughter and son’s graduation, my younger daughter’s track meets, impromptu trips to the park and to the mall, road trips to the other side of town for ice cream, etc.
But the thing that is the hardest to get over is my abandoned Japan trip. My oldest daughter is really into Japanese culture and I had promised her that I’d take her to Japan back in 2019. I made plans to do just that – tickets booked – then the world shut down. A year later, the world was still shut down. The following year (2022), the world began to open up again but Japan kept its borders closed. Knowing that the closure would be temporary and that Japan would eventually welcome guests again, I began planning this trip for the following year, this year, June 2023. I’ve literally had these reservations for nearly a year. I got within 5 weeks of keeping my promise to my little girl when I had to break her heart. We could not go. (Well, I could not go.) We had to postpone this trip, once again. I tried to convince the family that they could go without me, but they didn’t want to. Of course, they were disappointed not to be going but my daughter said that she would prefer for me to get better than to go to Japan. Japan would be there. What I wise and mature girl. I still wear the shame of letting my girl down as a badge of dishonor, to this day.
To compensate or rather placate and pacify my guilt, I had planned a quick domestic getaway for mid-July. I’d take us all to DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Flights booked. Hotels booked. Planned to borrow my parents’ car so I wouldn’t need to rent one upon arrival. Got Sen. Warnock to schedule a Senate building tour for me and the family… Surely, I’d be cleared to travel by July. My podiatrist said I could travel but I couldn’t put any weight on my foot. This means that I would’ve had to have a wheelchair and somebody push me all week or use my Walmart knee scooter and hold everyone back with my lack of mobility, due to the external fixator and wound vac and later cast I had on my foot at the time. Besides, the Washington metro is notorious for long escalators that I could not safely ride. I would be forced to ride the stations’ slow elevators that typically broke down. I felt that I’d be a further burden to the family taking this trip. No thank you. I had to cancel this one too.
You’d think I would’ve learned my lesson by now. No travel plans until I’m cleared to travel. But, that’s not my travel style. If I wait until I’m cleared, prices would be exponentially higher. And I don’t like paying for stuff that I could get cheaper or free. I try to plan my travel when prices are at their lowest. And my preference is to use airline miles and bank points to pay over cash whenever possible.
Well, I haven’t learned my lesson. My Ravens are playing in London this October… over my birthday weekend… and I have to be there. I’ve already booked my Delta flight to London Heathrow and a hotel in London. After stalking for months, I’ve even got a ticket to the game (in the nose bleed section). To avoid those high London surcharges, I booked my return flight from Dublin, Ireland to Chicago to Atlanta on United. I also booked a repositioning RyanAir flight to get me from London Gatwick to Dublin. I’m all set. I’m just praying that I can actually take this trip. I need a win after all of these L’s I’ve been catching lately.
As you can see, this year has been challenging for me, to say the least. Luckily, I have the council of my village (my family, my church, my travel group associates) to keep me sane. Lately, I’ve been trying to look on the bright side of things but its hard. I guess one good thing is that I still have my leg despite the fact that my podiatrist had threatened that I could very well lose it at nearly every follow-up appointment. Despite the foot injury and infection, I still got a leg. I could take solace in the fact that my family are troopers. They have been there for me every step of the way. And haven’t complained one bit. I’m in big debt to my wife, Saint Suazette, who has nursed me back to quasi-health and raised the kids practically on her own for the past 5 months. She is my rock. There is no doubt that she meant those better or worse, sickness and health vows.
Finally, despite a decent bout of depression, I’m glad this episode has not taken my desire to travel and show my family the world. In fact, you’d be surprised to know (well, maybe not) that I’m planning another Japan trip for summer 2024… and this trip will be grander than the one I had to cancel this year! I will keep my promise to my daughter. After all, if I don’t have my word, I don’t have anything.
I guess the year is not all bad. It has served to help me get perspective in my life, to put things in order, to see who is truly with me through thick and thin, to truly value the relationships I have built with people throughout the years. I have had many people consistently checking on and praying for me who I never knew cared one iota about me. I have had offers from my community to buy me groceries, to cook dinner, to pick up the kids from school, and even to mow my lawn. It’s all overwhelming. Knowing that your presence has been noticed and missed is reassuring, in and of itself.
So no, the year hasn’t been a waste. I’m counting this year as the rare one in which God keeps from you that which you want but is not good for you. He had to cripple me to keep from crippling me. If I had decided to check on my foot after coming back from my Zanzibar trip, there’s no doubt that the infection would’ve continued up my leg. By the time I would have returned to the US, I would’ve sealed my fate as an amputee. That is for certain. Come to think about it, I was definitely on borrowed time. Wow, what a great year it has been. (But bring on 2024!)
