Joyeux anniversaire, after all

As I said, I was not supposed to be here.

It’s strange to say that about Paris, but to be honest it hadn’t even figured in this year’s color-coded Excel itinerary at all.

I’d planned to land in Vienna (where I spent last year’s birthday), then take the overnight train the next day.  I’d wake up in Milan, then hop on a Freciarossa to my original birthday destination: Turin.

I would have gone to church, enjoyed a Sunday lunch, then caught a Serie A match at the stadium which had hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2006 Winter Olympics. Food, faith, family and football!

From there I’d visit Lyon, then Geneva. There was a gap of a week between the Swiss city and my flight out of Vienna, a pleasant interlude I had been happy to leave unfilled – back to Italy or on to Germany, where a friend had recently relocated, I hadn’t quite made up my mind. It was going to be an exciting adventure, and one I had meticulously prepared for.

Four (four!) days before I was to fly out, s*** happened.

Now the thing about s*** is this: you don’t ever get to decide when or how it happens to you.

I didn’t have space to breathe that day.   There were meetings, projects, other things to worry about. I concealed some of my displeasure, somehow managed to get through work, and only at the end did I sit down and try to salvage the impending disaster.

 After all, it was not a mindless domestic jaunt. It was a two-week, long-haul holiday that had just been casually thrown into disarray, and I couldn’t complain, couldn’t argue, couldn’t demand reparation or remorse, couldn’t even react. All I was expected to do was fix it.

So there we were with a calming pot of tea, I and the person who was the proximate cause of this kerfuffle, methodically diagramming my alternatives while I tried not to calculate how much I was going to lose in cancelled train tickets.

Just a couple hundred euros, my brain gloomily announced anyway.

Well, putain. Si cazzo. 

How about if you go to Paris first? came the sudden, inspired suggestion.

Mentally I totted up the additional plane, train and Airbnb costs of this reroute – that’s close to five hundred extra euros, my brain wailed – and made a decision.

F*** it, I’m heading to Paris.

And this, dear friends, is my key adulting takeaway for the year: no matter how much you think have it together and under control, s*** happens.

It’s frustrating and unfair and completely random, and when it does happen, it’s okay to be mad. It’s okay to be upset. We shouldn’t dismiss how we feel just because it isn’t a positive emotion. All feelings are valid.

But – and here’s the difference, I think, between a proper adult and a tantrum-throwing, self-pitying juvenile – it is better to set a limit on how much negative energy you want to expend, then get a grip on your feelings and start thinking about how to turn things to your advantage.

Don’t let anyone take away your joy, one of my favorite bosses used to say. And damned if I was going to let anything interfere with this holiday.

So finally I flew into Vienna and spent some time with family, easing myself back into the European autumn before traveling to the City of Light. I continued the French immersion in vibrant Lyon, and on to calm, cool Geneva as scheduled.

From Geneva, I was treated to a heart-stopping Alpine drive through the former Duchy of Savoy (now parts of modern-day Switzerland and France) on the way down to the lovely, graceful Piedmontese capital, the final stop, before flying back to Vienna, and onward to the tropics.

It was a decidedly different trip from the one I’d planned (and budgeted for), but I suppose I should still be grateful for the flexibility that allowed me to adjust.  I still ended up in Turin, after all.

And hey, if I was going to sulk somewhere all by myself on my birthday, might as well be moody and solitary (and artfully lit) in Paris.