We had landed and was on our way to the hotel in Orlando. Our flight was terrible. Constant turbulence. When I was looking at the map and the figures they were putting out on the screens in the back of the chairs, it was recording the turbulence was dropping 40 ft. My stomach was going crazy. I was trying to occupy my mind by planning our trip and what parks to do on what days...watching a movie, sleeping but the turbulence was that severe nothing would distract me. I was sitting next to a girl who was similar age to me and she must of thought I was some crazy lady grasping onto the handles on the chair and shutting my eyes tightly. She looked over at me and smiled. I decided to make spark up a convo with her so she didn't think I was a complete lunatic.
"I hate flying. How long are you staying in Orlando?"
I never hated flying, use to love it. But since having turbulence the past few times with our flights, it gave me huge motion sickness and just dreaded it.
"Oh I'm here for a week, I'm on a business trip. How about you?" she looked over tucking into her dinner.
"Two weeks. Are you going to get any free time during work?"
"Yeah sure, I get the next 4 days off and then 2 days of the conference so I don't really mind" shrugging her shoulders smirking.
" Oh nice. You have to explore Orlando, even if you don't do the Parks you have to go here and do this..."
Me and Will spoke to her for most of the flight. She was really lovely. I noticed she was reading her kindle in Russian yet her accent was almost perfect English. She also had a look to suggest she may not of been fully English. Perhaps eastern European but couldn't be sure.
"You're really clever to be reading that. Is it your first language?"
"Thanks and no it's not, I'm still learning it" she laughed.
"What are you guys going to do here? All Disney?" she asked looking over at me while I was trying to stomach some food.
" Oh yeah, we love all that stuff. " I nodded ripping of the bread and placing it into my mouth.
Will leaned forward in his seat and pointed at me.
" Shawnie is meeting her Dad too. He lives up in Georgia so we will spend time up there"
"Oh wow , that's nice! Are you looking forward to it?"
"Oh yeah, definitely, so excited. A little bit nervous though" I said smiling at her.
"Why are you nervous? " she tilted her head slightly in confusion.
"Because this would be my first time meeting him. " I smiled gently and looked back at my food.
She sat upright and shuffled towards me with her mouth gawping open with a slight smile.
"OH MY GOD, I didn't think he mean't like the first time ever! That is crazy, congratulations, I really hope it goes well for you"
I laughed " Thank you so much, I hope it does go well too, so far so good, I just hope he likes me as a person"
"Oh wow he so will. How exciting. Incredible. Well done you guys. Bit more exciting than my time with the IT conference."
It was little things like this that was just sticking into my brain. How this women who sat next to me on the plane was apart of my journey.
If she was out of her seat and the coffee and tea came round , I would make sure I would get her one just in case, I didn't want her to miss it. She had such a calming nature and I couldn't of asked for a better person to sit next too on the plane, aswell as Will of course!
As the flight was coming to an end and we put back on our seat belts, she looked over at me and said "It's been nice meeting you guys, I hope it goes well with meeting your dad, "
I smiled at her "Thanks, I hope your IT conference goes well and you get to explore Orlando!"
"Yeah, I definitely will, Thank you and good luck again" she nodded putting stuff away in her hand luggage.
The plane landed and it landed late due to circulating around a storm. Orlando was in darkness and I had been so use to landing in the daylight. It felt like a long day. I couldn't believe I was in the same time zone as Dad. I had made it and I was here, only a 5 hour car journey away.
When Will was driving us to the hotel I was exhausted. He done so well driving after such an exhausting flight.
We checked into our hotel and got settled to go to bed. It was restless. I couldn't settle and I physically could not shut off, no matter how exhausted I was, my mind wouldn't let me sleep. The room was spinning and I just wanted to sleep. My stomach clearly wasn't happy either. I had to get up at around 3 am to throw up. My body was drained. I just wanted to rest my head on the toilet seat and fall asleep there, (gross I know). It was short lived thankfully. I was walking back to the bed with my eyes closed, I was so tired. Couldn't tell you why I was sick... maybe just exhaustion and motion sickness from the plane perhaps.
DAYS IN ORLANDO
Days were flying by during our trip to Orlando and Disney treated us well. Hours felt like minutes and days felt like hours. The time to meeting Dad was creeping up on me.
Orlando is brilliant. We love it there. I just want to say if you guys get the opportunity to do it. Go for it. It can be expensive but it's worth every single penny of your happiness and enjoyment. You cannot put a price on that. You will love it. It's not even about Disney or Universal though when you are there, it's everything, it's how kind the people are there, the atmosphere, the weather, everything. It's so perfectly made to feel like paradise.
We had came in from a park on Monday 6th and I face timed Dad when we got back to the room.
"Hey Baby Girl! I can't believe your here! Are you excited? I can't wait for y'all to come up. When are you coming up?"
" Hey Dad! We are so excited to meet you all. We are planning Friday 10th but might come up Thursday 9th"
" Well, Melinda's son has a football game at his school on Wednesday if you wanted to come up earlier and stay a little longer?"
It was obvious Dad wanted to spend longer with us. I couldn't say no.
Will looked over at me , nodded and smiled.
"That will be so cool nate, we would love that. We will come up Wednesday."
Dad done a "Yes" hand action and said "I'm so excited you guys, I can't wait to see you Shawnie"
I smiled at the camera and said "I can't wait to see you too Dad".
It was my birthday tomorrow and I was more excited about seeing Dad.
I thought about Mum alot during this time. How incredible she was with bringing me up and raising me pretty much on her own. She done amazingly. She was my hero. My best friend and my guardian angel. She protected me from all the badness in the world and growing older was tough because you had to do that more on your own. I knew she was proud of me and honestly, I was proud of her being so forgiving of the past and being so kind to me about meeting the guy who hadn't been apart of my life for 22 years. She recognised he was different now and his intentions and priorities had hugely changed. It was so nice how well it was going.
I just want my mum to realise, growing up, she was my absolute hero and I can't thank her enough for loving and protecting me.
It was something special, a miracle almost that I got to meet my father after having in my head I would never meet him. It was insane in fact.
22nd Birthday
To get to spend your birthday in America is like, a blessing, something really incredible because, your so lucky to be there already and the people make the experience like nothing you have had before. Even though I loved it here, my mind was at Georgia and meeting Dad. The day came to an end and I could say that I get to meet my dad tomorrow. Everyones dads are different, no dad is the same so I didn't have expectations, I just knew what I wanted since I was a little girl was a Dad that could see me as his princess and would treat me like a best friend. I hope I could gain that with him. I saw so many girls who were close with their Dad's and I had wished my step dad could have been like that with me. However, this pushed me to find my biological father. And I would hug him and physically see him for the first time tomorrow. I'm coming Dad, I love you.