The Challenge
12/28/2021
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Indeed today was a fascinating day. Woke up packed for my trip. Oh yeah! If you missed out on Blog-HOR yesterday, I am headed to Jamaica tomorrow!! It is my first international trip, and I am going alone. Exciting shit, indeed. So I had this world tour planned out for this year (2021) paid flights and airbnb’s by early March, the whole nine. I then applied for my passport. Silly wabbit. I completely disregarded the fact that we were in the middle of a pandemic. That’s strike one. I didn’t know that it can naturally take a long time to receive your passport. Long story short I applied AFTER I booked everything. Strike two. I waited impatiently the norm six’ish weeks to get my passport. When I received the envelope it was not stiff in any way. You know how you order checks in the mail or a new bank card?
“
Don't be anxious over what you can not control.
-Leslie Z. Ramirez
”
And when the mail arrives and you see the bank name you feel for the card you ordered, well, similarly I felt for something that was not there. To my surprise I had received a letter instead of my passport. The letter was from the U.S. passport department specifically from the agent handling my case. She wrote that the form I had turned in, indeed, was a legal form but was not the certified form that met the requirements to process my application. See folks every day we learn something new. On that day I learned that there is a difference between a birth certificate card and a certified birth certificate.
The diff is (although both very legal) one has the parents name and state info and it is half a piece of office paper. The other is a full size office paper and in it every detail of your very existence is on it. I learned not only that to apply for a passport you needed the certified version, but I also learned that I was born at 1pm the Sunday of October 21st in the year 1990. I learned the address my folks humbly lived in when they had me. The Doctor that smacked that ass when I came out my moms you know what. It was a good process to go through. It may have not been what I wanted but it was a learning curve non the less. Back to the storyline of how I chose this NYE trip to Jamaica.
I called the state and county vital records office where I was born, Hill County Texas. Within another six weeks I'd received my certified birth certificate in the mail. I expedited the certified version to my agent at the US Passports office, and within another three weeks, BOOM! By then I had missed all scheduled world tour trips, and made peace with that. What’s meant to be, will simply be. Cannot force shit. So October rolled around and I hit 31, and I was not going into a new year (2022) without doing a few things I have been promising myself. One of those things, going out of the country after the hassle of getting the passport. So I looked into cheap flights, and asked WHERE TO? Jamaica! I asked Mom if she would help with the children, she replied “consider it your birthday gift, enjoy yourself!”.
Cheap flights presented themselves and I jumped on the opportunity. Here we are a night before my flight (12/28). Here we are a day after taking my pre-scheduled PCR Covid test (12/27). FREAKING OUT, if I will receive my test results before my flight tomorrow (12/29). Ain’t no telling. I do not want to allow something that is not in my power to control to have such a strong effect over me. So I called the Airlines and asked if I am allowed to take a rapid Antigen BiNaxNow test, I was told it was ok. So that’s plan B. What I seemed to realize is that local zip codes are out of the home kit tests. Jinkies! Anywho, I must sleep on it, do what I can on my part, have a plan B and then cross the bridge that I am there, tomorrow. Will I make it to Montgomery Bay or not?
I believe I will. I'll let y'all know what happens.
Talk with you tomorrow, same time and place.
-Blog HOR
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