Thoughts from the Phoenix Airport…

Flight to Kansas City

On each passing event in my life, the continued establishment of a love / hate relationship with being late to things. I hate being late. I hate the pressure that it produces when one is trying to get somewhere and traffic slows you down, an accident happens, or something else occurs that slows one down. The problem that I am noticing is that I self-sabotage myself by trying to make sure I have everything ready at the time I need to leave. I need to plan ahead. I need to spend more time before the actual time that I need to leave. This leads me to my hate relationship with being late. On the other hand, I do like to arrive places in as quick amount of time as possible. I want to get as much done as possible and I am most productive when I am under the gun. I know that it would be better for me to do things sooner but the rewards seem to come and reinforce my lateness to make feel that it wasn’t too bad. I made it on the plane without any problems, like today but the traffic was bad. I rained all night last night which I thought would keep people inside. Doh! I was wrong it made things worse. And then I was ready to leave on time but I couldn’t seem to remember the final thing that I needed to take with me. I never did remember. It will probably in a day or two that I remember.

So here I am in Phoenix, Arizona waiting for my connecting flight to Kansas City, MO for the 63^rd Annual AAMFT conference for marriage and family therapists. I am pretty excited. I am meeting up with Triston and Steve and the folks from BYU who are being so generous to me during our trip. I am catching a ride from them to Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas for the AAMFT student conference. I am really excited about this because it is going to be a way to mingle and network with people throughout the United States and to see where some strong programs are that I may like to work in the future. I look forward to meeting people and starting to see where some possibilities are for the future.

I am extremely excited about the opportunity to work as a host for several events at the AAMFT conference in which I might be able to generate contacts and friendships that will be able to last me well throughout my life. I love working with people and working on the set up and administration of events and tasks. I kind of think that it might be fun to work for AAMFT even though I am sure that it is hard to get on with them. The more I am in the field, I think that I really like therapy but I like to do it more part-time and to be doing more presentations, groups, and administrating of events. I don’t know if I have the stamina to run my own business and have that be the focus of my life’s work. I think that it would be easier to work for someone else. I also have this weird fantasy to write a book—not really relating to family therapy as much as it is about science fiction or a novel that incorporates family dynamics and a good understanding of human life and experience. That is a fun fantasy.

While I am on the topic, I still want to watch a Monday Night Football NFL game. I missed an opportunity to watch the Chargers and the Steelers with a friend. He had good seats but I didn’t pursue it. Life is just so busy. I will someday. I will go watch the Chargers while I am hear in Southern California. Another team that I would like to watch is the USC Trojans.

As I sit here in Phoenix, there are many seasoned men and women that are traveling. Who knows where but they are here. I think that it will be fun when Marlene and I have the opportunity to travel and see many sites in this world and learn about the art and architecture that fills our earth with so much beauty.

On our way to the airport this morning, Oscar and Lily were in the backseat and awake. Oscar was talking in the backseat about all the cars and trucks. What kind of truck or car? What color? And commenting about the rain.

He also has a very handsome haircut. It is a butch compared to his long hair that he had before. Oscar looks like a big boy now. He looks so smart and intelligent. I love watching him and seeing his mind work and understand things. For example, we sing “Wheels on the Bus,” “Twinkle Little Star” or “I hope they call me on a mission.” He just gets this big smile on his face and he is so happy.

Marlene was driving and feelings stressed because I pushed our leave time back a little too much and with traffic and the rain. Wow! We made it with just a half hour to go. Thank goodness for the online “Check-In” and printing of your boarding pass before you leave if you don’t have and checked luggage. Wow! What a time saver. I made it with more than 20 minutes to wait. Then we had to wait to take off for about 20 minutes because of the rain in Phoenix that was slowing things down here.

JP and Mary Ann’s town—I would call but they are out of contact for a week and hopefully having some fun. Isn’t it bizarre that you can be so close to someone and yet can’t see them. Like I am here at the Phoenix airport and it would be ludicrous to think that I would want to see them. Or if I had a connecting flight in SLC, I wouldn’t see any of my family or friends in Utah.

Sign off for now so that I can finish my stats paper.