For the last 13 years every time I would see a Southwest Airplane a range of emotions would rage through my body. For it was 13 years ago that I was fired from being a Southwest Flight Attendant.
For the first couple months it was horrible seeing the planes because I was sleeping on my brother's couch with nothing to do and searching for what was next. I had dreamt of becoming a flight attendant and traveling around the country. Now I was just a girl who was fired for being cold and unfriendly and I wasn't sure I had much value.
Fast forward just a few months and there I was at a Disney audition getting a job (a story within itself is a miracle). But still, I would look at those planes and loose heart because that was the vehicle to adventure and I had been thrown out.
Just a year later, my dream of becoming a Standby in a parade at Disneyland came true. I had always wanted to be the person who got to fill in when someone else was missing. It was such an adventure showing up everyday not knowing what you were doing and then making it happen. I remember seeing a Southwest Plane taking off and thinking that the colors that I used to think were of a beautiful sunset were now just a dull Orange and Brown.
A couple years flew by and before I knew it, I was in Fantasmic doing my dream role. Suddenly the planes looked like unattractive tin cans.
Another year passed and there I was living in Germany. I will never forget flying out on Luftansa and the little Southwest planes seemed so small and inferior to this life I was living.
Six months later, I got a different job flying through the sky. An unbelievable opportunity that had been my dream for 10 years. I drove by John Wayne Airport and saw a Southwest Plane landing and it looked like a prison. I little metal tube that would have trapped me in there and I would have never had all of these things happen.
The next year I toured with a rock band that I loved. The next year I started working at Angels Stadium. The next year I became the 2008 Disneyland Resort Ambassador to the World. The next year I went back to school full time to dance and write. The next year I started believing that my life was perfect. And the truth is, I haven't even notice a Southwest plane in years.
This morning, I watched as an American Airlines plane took off into the sky and I smiled. I look back 13 years and think about how I thought my dreams had been shattered but in reality, they were put perfectly in place. My dreams had to be shattered in order to have a life that is more than I could ever ask or imagine. And now, I don't travel around the country, I travel around the world and I have 13 years of amazing, undeniably wonderful, serendipitous life behind me.
There is a plan for my life and I just need to hold on and trust the big man upstairs, because man, he knows what he's doing.
