The family and I flew from London to New York on Saturday. We landed around 4:30 PM at JFK Airport in New York City.
By the time we cleared passport control, retrieved our bags and our car, and made the two-hour drive home, it was nearly 8:00 PM, though our bodies, thanks to jet lag, made it feel like 1:00 AM.
I unpacked and immediately put my clothing into the washing machine. I needed to quickly re-pack my bag.
The following morning, Sunday, at 6:00 AM, I left home to play golf with friends.
At 4:00 PM that afternoon, Charlie and I drove to Boston to see Styx and Chicago in concert.
We arrived home from the concert just after midnight.
Three hours later, at 3:00 AM on Monday morning, I left the house for the airport. I have a 5:00 AM flight to the West Coast.
I’ll be spending the next four days speaking at a conference in Victoria, British Columbia, before flying down to Seattle and eventually by train and ferry over to Whidbey Island for three days of golf with a friend.
At the moment, I’m sitting outside the McDonald’s at Bradley International Airport. It’s 3:43 AM as I write this. I’m waiting for McDonald’s to open at 4:00 AM so I can eat an Egg McMuffin.
It’s been a busy couple of days.
On Saturday morning, I was eating breakfast in a British cafe in Notting Hill.
Less than 24 hours later, I was playing golf in Connecticut, and six hours after that, I was driving two hours to Boston to see a concert with Charlie.
Then, after three hours of sleep, I’m here, waiting to fly again.
One of my friends questioned the wisdom of spending my one day between London and the West Coast on the golf course and at a concert in Boston.
“You’re going to get home from the concert, barely sleep, and then fly again? Are you opposed to sitting still for even a minute? I would’ve used Sunday to rest and sleep before leaving again.”
I get it. And yes, it wasn’t easy. The three hours of sleep is admittedly not great. And yes, I’m a little bleary-eyed as I write this. And yes, a day of rest between travel might have been wise.
But had I rested on Sunday, I wouldn’t have laughed with friends on the golf course. I would’ve missed a spectacular morning, complete with a beautiful sunrise, fairways of sparkling dew, and a babbling brook that ate my ball.
I wouldn’t have offered a friend advice on making friends that I think he might use.
I wouldn’t have made four one-putts in nine holes of golf. I wouldn’t have made that perfect bunker shot on eight that put me three feet from the pin and a par. I wouldn’t have gotten a tip from Tom that I used two holes later to great effect.
More importantly, I wouldn’t have spent eight glorious hours with Charlie.
We wouldn’t have been re-routed by GPS off the clogged Mass Pike to a tiny farm town where we passed by signs warning us of bear, turtle, and horse crossings all within a mile of one another.
Bear crossing! A new one for me!
I wouldn’t have told Charlie a story about the time my friend, Bengi, and I flirted with and ultimately dated two girls at the McDonald’s in Uxbridge, MA where Charlie and I stopped to grab food.
We wouldn’t have sung our hearts out to Styx’s “Our Wonderful Lives” — my favorite Styx song that I’ve heard them play live only once before. And we wouldn’t have lost our voices singing “Come Sail Away” at the end of the set as we pumped our fists in the air.
I wouldn’t have been asked by multiple people at the concert how I managed to get my 14-year-old son to love Styx enough to know every lyric to nearly every song. I wouldn’t have watched a woman’s jaw drop after hearing Charlie tell her it’s his fifth time seeing Styx. I wouldn’t have watched him talk to people four and five times his age about classic rock between bands.
I wouldn’t have learned, from Charlie, what a 12-string guitar is, or how a minor pentatonic scale is constructed, or the reason for a five-string bass guitar.
And we wouldn’t have spent more than four hours together in a car, listening to and talking about music, telling stories about the past, and hoping against hope that the traffic that blocked the Mass Pike wouldn’t make us late for the concert.
And we wouldn’t have experienced a serendipitous moment when we finally found our seats, five rows from the stage, and plopped down at the very moment the place went dark, and Tommy Shaw played the first note of the concert on his guitar.
Yes, a day of rest between two weeklong trips to time zones nine hours apart would’ve been lovely, but a week from now, my bleary-eyed morning at the airport and my sluggish legs will mean nothing to me, but the memories made on the golf course with friends and at the concert with my son will mean the world to me.
I have nothing against a good night’s sleep. I think a well-rested body and mind are great things. I take sleep seriously most of the time. I may not sleep as much as most people, but I do it right, and I do it well.
But sometimes, life gives you a chance to make some memories if you’re willing to make some sacrifices along the way, and when it does, it would be a damn tragedy to let those pass by because you’d prefer to be well-rested or because the road ahead might be difficult.
Never allow your life to be small because you need a good night’s sleep.
