Hey there,

 

This one is about unnecessary stress.

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I know someone who has this unapologetic stance when it comes to problematic situations in life and I adore that quality of hers. “This will make for a great story later,” that’s the infamous line she uses.

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Lo and behold, every time the situation completed its course, it did end up making the ‘great anecdote’ list. It boggled me. Living this carefree was not in line with my first-child syndrome of taking everything seriously. But again, just because it’s something I’m not adept at, doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the hell out of it.

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Walking the never-ending immigration line at an airport once, I struck up a conversation with the gentleman behind me. We were en route the same destination, that’s what got the two of us talking. The conversation was halted with him not believing my name was Aamer Khan, so I decided to put a pin in it. Digging through my bag for my passport, I thought, ‘Man, this guy’s going to get surprised.’

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My smile slowly faded away as I clawed through the bag, only to realise that of all things I thought I was missing, taking my passport from the drawer slipped my mind. I asked the gentleman (who I never got to prove that my name was Aamer Khan) to hold my place in the queue as I made frenzy phone calls home.

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After an hour of nail-biting, that eventually led to sore, bare fingers, someone finally managed to scurry to the airport with my passport. I reached the immigration counter with time to spare and one of the most stressful periods of my life had come to my end.

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Phew. I never knew traveling would be so stressful. The immigration officer looked at the visa, looked back at me and said I would not be eligible for travel to that particular country because I was on a student visa and I needed a business visa to be able to travel.

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One hour of head-splitting stress and I’m not even traveling because of a technicality. I couldn’t help but laugh. I returned home with a smile.

Lo and behold, the situation had completed its course and I have to say, it did end up making the ‘great anecdote’ list.

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