Nothing Is Real 'Til It's Gone

My friend said it’s similar to looking at the northern lights and telling someone you love them. I equate it to being at the Goo Goo Dolls concert after a week of hard work with three of your great girlfriends while more confetti than you could ever dream of falls from above.

There are few words and whatever words may be able to describe the emotion is certainly out of my ability to do so.

I knew it was our busiest week of the year. I knew going into it how difficult it would be. I had tons of anxiety. I knew as I packed my bags the night before, before I even checked into the hotel room, before I met the foreigners, it would be grueling and exhausting. I didn’t expect it would be one of the most rewarding weeks of my life.

I expected one hundred hours as the worst case scenario. I came in just under. Yet anything between eighty and a hundred feels the same. Simply put, it’s all a blur.

I work for a global company with distributors coming from many countries around the world. This past week was a corporate convention and it all started there. “There” being a corn maze shaped like David Archuleta as his music blared from the surrounding speakers while 500 multi cultural early comers were entertained by and on the company.

I gave a tour of our corporate headquarters (a frequent job task) to a group of sixty Hungarians and Czech Republicans. My tour consisted of my English to a French translator who translated the French to Hungarian while a Hungarian further translated to Czech for all the rest.

Early on, I sarcastically made a statement only to be told in English by the French translator sarcasm is American and doesn’t translate. “Well folks, I don’t really have much more for you. Here is the corporate state of the art boardroom, CEO’s office, the Co-Founders’ offices, the elevator. Any questions?”

Later that week I would annihilate two of those Hungarians in a speed drinking contest. Upon leaving the table and dashing off to usher another event, I took my wine glass of water, and swallowed the full contents in about half a second. The president of our Eastern Europe Market was impressed. When commenting on my talent, I openly accepted the familiar astonishment as I’ve known I’ve had this ability for awhile.

Two of these Hungarians then challenged me to a drink off in which servers were summoned to bring each of us two of these glasses filled with water, the Europeans’ being room temperature and mine being cold. “Un, deux, trois!”

I smoked them. To which I was told had they been drinking beer, they would have beaten me. I was informed Europeans don’t drink water. To which I notified them I was more than up for the challenge after I finished work. I was cheered by onlookers and fellow co-workers.

Yet if I had to sum up my sixteen plus hour days filled with luncheons & motivational speakers like Peter Vidmar, hand shakes & double cheek kisses (I love these the best), registration & onsite product store assignments, charity dinners & silent auctions, late night dance practices for Saturday morning general session introductions & even later night conversations with co-workers in hotel rooms, I think the only word I could use for the encounter would be “hope.”

I felt a sort of hope which I have long since felt. A resurgence of what I’m good at… people. That I have so much left to experience and contribute in this world… a listening ear and love. That although I struggle with having mastered nothing in this world, I am naturally good at almost everything I try.

I’m bright. I’m comical. I’m charismatic. Then for the first time in a long time, I thought less about how I’ve been begging Deity to take me to the people I need to be with or the place I need to be.

I thought more about how somewhere someone is begging Deity to send me into their life. As an employee. As an emissary. As a companion.

I felt hope. Hope in people of the world. Hope in two prayers are heard better than one. Hope in my future.

So even as the concert marking week’s end finished and I was getting my pictures taken with the Goo Goo Dolls (backstage passes), I was more concerned with getting to IHOP in time to meet up with my friends I’d been without for vastly more than a hundred hours.

I finally got home, went to bed, and upon waking 14 hours later had one thought in my mind. Hope.