Wednesday: Inspiration

I'm currently sitting in the San Francisco airport mid-way through a six hour layover. The price I pay to fly my favorite airline ;) At first the extended airport stay intimidated me and had me feeling like Tom Hanks in "The Terminal" but I've actually got to admit I'm quite enjoying the time. I had a nice (well, for an airport) lunch of sushi and soup while I read the latest Vanity Fair (something that happens so rarely they're stacked up in my house waiting to be read), I've caught up on some emails and spent time talking to old friends.

I also had time to talk to my sister who's been in the hospital all week. She's had a rough year health-wise but is finally on the road to getting better after finally being diagnosed and now treated. Her job hasn't been very understanding. After six days they told her she'd used all of her sick days and would be eating into her vacation time. After that they said they'd have to put her on a short leave of absence. The follow-up email said the leave would be unpaid. Two days later, today, she received an email from them saying they were terminating her position. Talk about kicking a person when they're down – and taking away not only their job but their health insurance. I'm not even sure that's legal.

But, the good and inspiring part of this story is that she's staying optimistic and realizing this as a possible blessing in disguise. One of the girls has long been playing up the social politics and treating the office like a high school cafeteria (ironically she's HR) and going as far as telling co-workers my sister was 'faking' being sick to take days off. Really?

But, that aside, my sister will be better, hopefully sooner rather than later, and as she takes the time to recoup she's realizing that there are no problems, just solutions and new chapters. She's 29 and has a clean slate and is looking forward to the opportunities of the future rather than fretting on the problems of the past. If she can do that, we all can ;) xo