April 3, 2025 • 23 mins
Brandon continues his love story where he left off, dealing with the heartache of separation from Juliana and navigating the challenging process of bringing her from Brazil to America during COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Please start with Episode 1. Go to my site BrandonHeld.com
• Discovering that spousal visas process much faster than fiancé visas during the pandemic
• Making the practical decision to marry rather than pursue a lengthy fiancé visa process
• Changing travel plans from Mexico to the Bahamas after learning about potential entry restrictions
• Struggling to arrange wedding details remotely in the Bahamas without local contacts
• Sprinting desperately through Miami airport with minutes to spare after flight delays
• Reuniting with Juliana in the Bahamas despite physical pain, missing luggage, and disappointing accommodations
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Welcome back to Brandon Held Life is Crazy.
We are now on episode 22.
The idea is to tell my story anddiscuss my life and its events
from beginning to current.
If you just are starting in themiddle, it's not going to make
(00:25):
sense to you.
It may not resonate with youbecause you're missing some
information from The previouspodcast.
So please go back to podcast oneand start from the beginning.
And so last time I left offwhere I had left Brazil, meaning
the love of my life.
(00:49):
And now I was going to have todeal with this new absence in my
heart.
This thing that just nine daysago.
didn't exist as far as I didn'tneed this person in my life
every day.
The next steps were to try toget her to America on a fiance
(01:11):
visa.
And we started that process andJuliana is an incredible
researcher, just incredible.
Like no one I've ever known.
It probably behooves her as alawyer.
To be an incredible researcher,she just does that really well.
(01:33):
She knows how to gounconventional routes and get to
people to get information thatyou can't just find online, that
you can't just find somewhere.
She's just really great at it.
She had to finish studying forher bar exam yesterday.
(01:56):
No, I think she did do that,actually, when we met.
I think she took the bar examand she found out when we were
together that she passed.
What said a lot about her to meand anyone that should know her
is that she passed the bar examand there are two exams on the
(02:19):
first try.
First try.
Those bar exams have a no matterwhat.
how many tries people are on inthe room, it's really hard to
pass.
And she passed two different barexams on her first attempt.
Kudos to her.
She was using her time wiselyfor that.
(02:44):
She's an incredible academic.
And so she was doing researchand learning about the fiance
visa and finding out the processand what everyone's going
through during this COVID time.
And something that maybe onlytook a few months to do in
(03:06):
regular time was taking years toget done.
And she's telling me thisinformation to not just prepare
me, but prepare her, prepare usboth mentally.
Like we have no idea how longthis thing could drag on.
Are we strong enough to stickthis out and be apart for years
(03:27):
to be together?
Cause I can't move to Brazil.
And so that was now a thing thatwas in my mind that I needed to
worry about.
And during our research, welearned that spousal visas get
(03:48):
approved much faster than fiancevisas.
Like the true real way to gether here as quickly as we're
possibly going to get her hereis to get married.
And so after giving that somethought and thinking about if
she comes here on a fiance visa,we have 90 days to be together
(04:14):
and get married or decide not toget married.
And as amazing as our eight dayswere together, I couldn't
imagine that she would come andwe would do anything else that
we wouldn't get married.
Getting married and trying toget her here is really no
(04:34):
different than doing a fiancevisa.
It gives you a small window toback out if you say something
doesn't feel right or somethingdoesn't feel comfortable.
I asked her.
over the phone, hey, the nexttime we meet, would you like to
just get married and we can getyou here faster?
(04:55):
The way she responded to theproposal of me asking her to
marry, she seemed pretty excitedabout that and she said yes to
that pretty quickly.
I thought I'd get the sameresponse on the marriage idea.
But I didn't.
(05:16):
I got the true Juliana responsethis time, which is, ooh, I
don't know about that.
I have to think about that.
I'm not sure if I want to dothat.
That took me back a little bitbecause I wasn't expecting that.
I thought logically it madesense.
(05:37):
So I had to give her some time.
And of course, while giving herthat time, I'm giving her the
pros of why we should do that.
She's, of course, in her mindcoming up with the pros and
cons.
But in the end, after a fewdays, I don't remember exactly
how long, she realized the prosfar outweighed the cons.
(05:59):
Because if we made it through anengagement that potentially took
her years to arrive, there'sprobably...
No way we wouldn't get marriedin those 90 days.
So it made sense to get her hereeven faster.
That's the path we went on.
(06:22):
We set up to initially travel toMexico to meet.
And then we were going to get,because this time I wanted to
meet somewhere else, have adifferent destination, get her
out of Brazil.
And so book the tickets, bookthe hotel.
(06:44):
It was all set.
And she found out throughsomeone that Mexico didn't let
everyone in their country.
She just happened to overhear aconversation by a doctor that
wanted to go to Cancun for avacation and they flew all the
(07:06):
way there.
And they got rejected at theairport by the Mexican
authorities.
And they had to turn around andcome back to Brazil.
And so she looked into thatafter she heard about that.
And she realized there's a goodchance I could maybe not get in
(07:28):
to Mexico.
And I won't see you there.
We won't get married.
None of that will happen.
Immediately, I thought that'snot worth the risk at That's not
a risk I want to take.
So we have to cancel that tripand do something else.
Now, this wasn't within thewindow of canceling the hotel
(07:49):
because I had until days beforearrival to cancel the hotel.
So I canceled the hotelimmediately and I called the
airline to see where could Ireroute these tickets?
What kind of budget would Ihave?
Would it cost me more?
What are the price differences?
All the financial parts oftrying to go somewhere else and
(08:14):
do something differently, eventhough the tickets were already
paid for.
Where we ended up deciding to gowas the Bahamas.
Now, it wasn't really going tocost me much more in flights or
plane tickets.
But when I went to the Bahamasto book the hotel and the room,
it was significantly moreexpensive to stay in the
(08:37):
Bahamas.
The increase in price went upquite a bit.
That was a factor.
And then I had never been to theBahamas before, so I was excited
about it.
How we wanted to get to theBahamas, how we wanted to try to
get married on the beach.
All the possibilities of what wecould do.
We were looking atphotographers, finding people.
(09:00):
someone with the authority tomarry us, all those things.
Sadly, what we learned was it'sreally difficult to get in touch
with anyone in the Bahamas whenyou're not in the Bahamas.
So we were trying to geteverything set up, get someone
to marry us on a beach.
(09:21):
We just couldn't get in touchwith anyone that would schedule
that and want to do that.
And then we called somephotographers and they just had
these just insane prices fortaking wedding pictures or just
a dozen pictures or more for thetwo of us because it's a
(09:43):
destination wedding for the twoof us no other family or friends
would be joining us it's justthe two of us and they just the
they had these like 600 to plusdollar price ranges and for
these pictures and so I justcouldn't find anything to book
and so we were really flying tothe Bahamas to meet in a few
(10:08):
months just basically on we'llfigure it out when we get there
and by the time we had reroutedthe tickets and rerouted the
hotel and the way thateverything worked out she only
had so many options for flyingout of Brazil there just wasn't
a lot of daily choices forflying from Brazil to the
(10:33):
Bahamas.
And I had my leave set upalready for certain days.
And so by the time we did allthat, we had to book the hotel a
night earlier and she had toarrive a night before me by
herself and wait for me toarrive the next day.
So neither one of us loved thatidea, but it was what it was.
(10:57):
I'm pretty overprotectiveperson.
If you've been listening to thispodcast the whole way through,
what I dealt with in mychildhood and why that wanted
pushed me to want to be a copinitially.
And all that just has to do withsecurity and being
overprotective.
And it was scary more for methan her that she was going to
(11:22):
be going to the Bahamas withoutme all by herself and be there.
basically about 24 hours beforeI get there and so she gets
there everything's fine we'retalking everything's going well
and she's not having anyproblems she's not feeling in
(11:43):
any danger she's enjoying howbeautiful it is there and so
then the next day I leave totake my trip to the bahamas and
i just i throw on some jeans apolo shirt and then like some
canvas shoes for travel justsome comfortable canvas slip-on
shoes for travel and i fly outand i realize that my flight has
(12:10):
a very short window of if it'son time that when i land in
miami I have 45 minutes till theplane takes off again in Miami
to go to the Bahamas.
So as everyone knows, all planeboards about 30 minutes prior to
takeoff.
And so 45 minutes was reallyjust not a lot of time to spare.
(12:35):
And so I was on the runway inDallas waiting to fly to Miami.
Everything was on time.
Everything was going smoothly.
And then the next thing I know,we're sitting on the runway in
line in Dallas waiting to takeoff.
Starting to make me anxious andworry me that I was going to
(12:58):
miss my flight from Miami to theBahamas because it was already
the last flight of the night bythe time I got in Miami.
So if I didn't get there, Iwould have to stay overnight in
Miami and she would be aloneanother night in the Bahamas.
I already missed her so much.
I already didn't like her beingthere alone.
(13:19):
And I'm freaking out.
We're just sitting on the runwayin Dallas waiting for this
flight to be cleared to takeoff.
It sure is shit.
It takes 45 minutes almostexactly for us to take off from
(13:40):
our original departing time.
I'm panicking.
I'm trying not to.
Almost the whole time I'mtelling myself like, all right,
stay calm.
Don't panic.
Things are going to work out.
And I'm really just trying totalk myself down from getting
(14:00):
too anxious and too upset.
So one of the ways I decided todo that was I wanted to go talk
to the flight attendants andsay, hey, I got like literal
minutes left.
Five minutes when we hit theground to get to my gate to
catch my flight to the Bahamasand I'm meeting my fiance in
(14:23):
Brazil and I have a limitednumber of days that I can
actually see her.
A lost night is a big loss forus because we already don't get
to see each other very much.
And so they were cool about itand they gave the whole spiel
over the the speakers foreveryone on the flight that when
(14:46):
we land to let the people thatare going to the Bahamas to the
front of the plane so they canexit and be the first to leave.
And so we landed.
We took our time, of course,getting up to the tarmac and
getting our door opened where wecould get out.
And I was literally the firstone out of the plane.
(15:08):
First one out of the plane.
First time that had everhappened.
And I'm fast walking my waythrough the tunnel to get into
the airport.
And I get two, three steps intothe airport.
And I hear over the loudspeaker,last call for anyone boarding a
(15:32):
flight to Nassau, Bahamas.
Last call.
We're going to be closing thegate.
Last call.
And so now I have this backpackon my back.
And I have these vans, flats,canvas shoes on my feet.
And I'm like, there's no fuckingway I'm missing this flight.
(15:53):
So I find out the boarding gate,which is literally on the other
side of the airport.
I was in C something or Dsomething.
I don't even remember anymore.
And I had to get all the way toA something.
So I start sprinting it.
Now, mind you, I'm not in greatshape yet to this point.
(16:14):
I've been working out and I'vebeen trying to get in better
shape.
But I had mostly been doing thatby lifting and walking.
I had bad knees and a bad lowerback from my time in the
military.
And just also from beingsedentary when my health wasn't
good.
And now all of a sudden I'msprinting my ass across the
(16:39):
Miami airport with probably a 20pounds on my back.
It was really bringing me backto the army days.
I was in army boots, but Iwasn't sprinting.
We did run sometimes, but itwasn't a sprint.
It was a jog, but I'm literallysprinting.
And I mean, going as fast as Ican until I'm sucking wind so
(16:59):
badly.
I'm loudly sucking wind in theairport, running down the
hallways and people are lookingat me like I'm crazy.
But I didn't care.
I had one goal in mind, and thatwas to get to that terminal so I
could board that flight on time.
(17:20):
And so I sprint and I getthrough, I get to the gate and I
noticed the door hasn't closedyet.
And I was so excited.
And I get there and the ladysees me running and she's like,
all right, come on, hurry up.
And she's like, were you on theflight from Dallas?
I said, yeah, but I sprinted thewhole way here.
(17:42):
I doubt anyone is going to beright behind me.
It's going to take some time foreveryone to get here.
And they were just basically,oh, then they're going to miss
the flight.
And I was so happy to have madeit.
I get to the plane.
I'm sweating.
I'm breathing heavy.
I'm feeling tingling andnumbness and pain all over my
(18:05):
body.
that I didn't, still theadrenaline was flowing through
me, but I didn't know how thatwas going to affect me, but I
knew I had made the flight.
And so she lets me on and shecloses the door almost
immediately behind me.
And so I go and I get on theplane, which honestly was maybe
(18:26):
at 40% capacity or less, maybe30%.
I really wasn't sure, but I knewthere were plenty of rows that
had one person in the entirerow, my row included.
We're sitting there on thetarmac before we even back out,
before we even hit the runwayfor 20 to 25 minutes.
(18:49):
And I'm just thinking, oh, arethey going to let these people
that were behind me that landedfrom Dallas, are they going to
let them get on the plane?
That must be the reason.
They're not giving us anyexplanation.
We're literally sitting herewaiting.
And so after about 20 minutes,nobody else had boarded the
(19:10):
plane and we start backing outto make our flight to the
Bahamas.
And I think, huh, that's weird.
We sat there for a long time.
Nobody else boarded and we'rejust now taking off.
And I was super excited that Ihad made it.
I knew that Juliana wasn't goingto have to be alone for another
(19:31):
night, that I wouldn't have tostay the night in Miami.
And so I kick back and I try torelax knowing that I made it and
it's just a small flight to theBahamas, slowing down and going
away.
I all of a sudden realized that,holy crap, my lower back hurts
(19:54):
and both of my ankles arekilling me.
Like they're just in incrediblepain.
I had never felt anything likethat in my ankles before in my
life.
I didn't know what I had done orwhat was happening to me.
I was trying to think like thewhole time I was running, I
(20:17):
didn't roll my ankles.
I didn't do anything to twist orsprain my ankles.
So that was odd.
I thought my knees would hurtand they did a little and I
thought my back would hurt andit did.
But I had no idea what the heckwas going on with my ankles.
So I arrive at the Bahamas.
(20:38):
I think it's like less than anhour flight.
Flying over this beautifulwater, these white sandy
beaches.
And I land.
And when I land, I go to theluggage area for my luggage.
It doesn't arrive.
I have to go to luggage claimand let them know, okay, my
luggage didn't arrive.
(20:58):
This is where I'm staying.
And they said they would bringit to me the next day when it
arrived.
And I finally leave the airportto see Juliana for the first
time in months.
And I was so happy and soexcited to see her, but I was
also in so much pain at the sametime that I was trying to ignore
(21:23):
it.
And I was trying to not let itbe a thing that was a problem
for us since I was now in theBahamas with her.
for the second time that I wasgoing to see her and this was
our trip that we were going toget married and the taxi driver
that had picked us up evencommented in the ride on the way
(21:43):
here I was trying to talk to herand she was so miserable didn't
want to talk and now that she'swith you she's so happy she's
like a completely differentperson he was like You can tell
this girl, she really loves youbecause she was like two
different people from when youweren't here versus now that
(22:04):
you're here.
And of course that made me feelreally good.
And so we get to the hotel and Ibooked the hotel online, of
course, because you can't see itin person.
And I get there and from theoutside, it looked fine.
But when I got to the room, itwas supposed to be a suite with
a kitchen and table and bed.
(22:25):
So now I arrived to thisdisappointing hotel room in pain
with my ankles hurting, notknowing what's going on there.
But I see her and I'm with her.
So the counterbalance is on thepositive side just because I'm
in the Bahamas.
I'm with her.
We're going to get married.
(22:48):
And everything was going to beall right.
Or so I thought.
So...
The next episode, I willcontinue from there and I will
let you know what happened inthe Bahamas and more.
Thanks again for joining andI'll talk to you next episode.
Welcome back to Brandon Held Life is Crazy.
We are now on episode 22.
The idea is to tell my story anddiscuss my life and its events
from beginning to current.
If you just are starting in themiddle, it's not going to make
(00:25):
sense to you.
It may not resonate with youbecause you're missing some
information from The previouspodcast.
So please go back to podcast oneand start from the beginning.
And so last time I left offwhere I had left Brazil, meaning
the love of my life.
(00:49):
And now I was going to have todeal with this new absence in my
heart.
This thing that just nine daysago.
didn't exist as far as I didn'tneed this person in my life
every day.
The next steps were to try toget her to America on a fiance
(01:11):
visa.
And we started that process andJuliana is an incredible
researcher, just incredible.
Like no one I've ever known.
It probably behooves her as alawyer.
To be an incredible researcher,she just does that really well.
(01:33):
She knows how to gounconventional routes and get to
people to get information thatyou can't just find online, that
you can't just find somewhere.
She's just really great at it.
She had to finish studying forher bar exam yesterday.
(01:56):
No, I think she did do that,actually, when we met.
I think she took the bar examand she found out when we were
together that she passed.
What said a lot about her to meand anyone that should know her
is that she passed the bar examand there are two exams on the
(02:19):
first try.
First try.
Those bar exams have a no matterwhat.
how many tries people are on inthe room, it's really hard to
pass.
And she passed two different barexams on her first attempt.
Kudos to her.
She was using her time wiselyfor that.
(02:44):
She's an incredible academic.
And so she was doing researchand learning about the fiance
visa and finding out the processand what everyone's going
through during this COVID time.
And something that maybe onlytook a few months to do in
(03:06):
regular time was taking years toget done.
And she's telling me thisinformation to not just prepare
me, but prepare her, prepare usboth mentally.
Like we have no idea how longthis thing could drag on.
Are we strong enough to stickthis out and be apart for years
(03:27):
to be together?
Cause I can't move to Brazil.
And so that was now a thing thatwas in my mind that I needed to
worry about.
And during our research, welearned that spousal visas get
(03:48):
approved much faster than fiancevisas.
Like the true real way to gether here as quickly as we're
possibly going to get her hereis to get married.
And so after giving that somethought and thinking about if
she comes here on a fiance visa,we have 90 days to be together
(04:14):
and get married or decide not toget married.
And as amazing as our eight dayswere together, I couldn't
imagine that she would come andwe would do anything else that
we wouldn't get married.
Getting married and trying toget her here is really no
(04:34):
different than doing a fiancevisa.
It gives you a small window toback out if you say something
doesn't feel right or somethingdoesn't feel comfortable.
I asked her.
over the phone, hey, the nexttime we meet, would you like to
just get married and we can getyou here faster?
(04:55):
The way she responded to theproposal of me asking her to
marry, she seemed pretty excitedabout that and she said yes to
that pretty quickly.
I thought I'd get the sameresponse on the marriage idea.
But I didn't.
(05:16):
I got the true Juliana responsethis time, which is, ooh, I
don't know about that.
I have to think about that.
I'm not sure if I want to dothat.
That took me back a little bitbecause I wasn't expecting that.
I thought logically it madesense.
(05:37):
So I had to give her some time.
And of course, while giving herthat time, I'm giving her the
pros of why we should do that.
She's, of course, in her mindcoming up with the pros and
cons.
But in the end, after a fewdays, I don't remember exactly
how long, she realized the prosfar outweighed the cons.
(05:59):
Because if we made it through anengagement that potentially took
her years to arrive, there'sprobably...
No way we wouldn't get marriedin those 90 days.
So it made sense to get her hereeven faster.
That's the path we went on.
(06:22):
We set up to initially travel toMexico to meet.
And then we were going to get,because this time I wanted to
meet somewhere else, have adifferent destination, get her
out of Brazil.
And so book the tickets, bookthe hotel.
(06:44):
It was all set.
And she found out throughsomeone that Mexico didn't let
everyone in their country.
She just happened to overhear aconversation by a doctor that
wanted to go to Cancun for avacation and they flew all the
(07:06):
way there.
And they got rejected at theairport by the Mexican
authorities.
And they had to turn around andcome back to Brazil.
And so she looked into thatafter she heard about that.
And she realized there's a goodchance I could maybe not get in
(07:28):
to Mexico.
And I won't see you there.
We won't get married.
None of that will happen.
Immediately, I thought that'snot worth the risk at That's not
a risk I want to take.
So we have to cancel that tripand do something else.
Now, this wasn't within thewindow of canceling the hotel
(07:49):
because I had until days beforearrival to cancel the hotel.
So I canceled the hotelimmediately and I called the
airline to see where could Ireroute these tickets?
What kind of budget would Ihave?
Would it cost me more?
What are the price differences?
All the financial parts oftrying to go somewhere else and
(08:14):
do something differently, eventhough the tickets were already
paid for.
Where we ended up deciding to gowas the Bahamas.
Now, it wasn't really going tocost me much more in flights or
plane tickets.
But when I went to the Bahamasto book the hotel and the room,
it was significantly moreexpensive to stay in the
(08:37):
Bahamas.
The increase in price went upquite a bit.
That was a factor.
And then I had never been to theBahamas before, so I was excited
about it.
How we wanted to get to theBahamas, how we wanted to try to
get married on the beach.
All the possibilities of what wecould do.
We were looking atphotographers, finding people.
(09:00):
someone with the authority tomarry us, all those things.
Sadly, what we learned was it'sreally difficult to get in touch
with anyone in the Bahamas whenyou're not in the Bahamas.
So we were trying to geteverything set up, get someone
to marry us on a beach.
(09:21):
We just couldn't get in touchwith anyone that would schedule
that and want to do that.
And then we called somephotographers and they just had
these just insane prices fortaking wedding pictures or just
a dozen pictures or more for thetwo of us because it's a
(09:43):
destination wedding for the twoof us no other family or friends
would be joining us it's justthe two of us and they just the
they had these like 600 to plusdollar price ranges and for
these pictures and so I justcouldn't find anything to book
and so we were really flying tothe Bahamas to meet in a few
(10:08):
months just basically on we'llfigure it out when we get there
and by the time we had reroutedthe tickets and rerouted the
hotel and the way thateverything worked out she only
had so many options for flyingout of Brazil there just wasn't
a lot of daily choices forflying from Brazil to the
(10:33):
Bahamas.
And I had my leave set upalready for certain days.
And so by the time we did allthat, we had to book the hotel a
night earlier and she had toarrive a night before me by
herself and wait for me toarrive the next day.
So neither one of us loved thatidea, but it was what it was.
(10:57):
I'm pretty overprotectiveperson.
If you've been listening to thispodcast the whole way through,
what I dealt with in mychildhood and why that wanted
pushed me to want to be a copinitially.
And all that just has to do withsecurity and being
overprotective.
And it was scary more for methan her that she was going to
(11:22):
be going to the Bahamas withoutme all by herself and be there.
basically about 24 hours beforeI get there and so she gets
there everything's fine we'retalking everything's going well
and she's not having anyproblems she's not feeling in
(11:43):
any danger she's enjoying howbeautiful it is there and so
then the next day I leave totake my trip to the bahamas and
i just i throw on some jeans apolo shirt and then like some
canvas shoes for travel justsome comfortable canvas slip-on
shoes for travel and i fly outand i realize that my flight has
(12:10):
a very short window of if it'son time that when i land in
miami I have 45 minutes till theplane takes off again in Miami
to go to the Bahamas.
So as everyone knows, all planeboards about 30 minutes prior to
takeoff.
And so 45 minutes was reallyjust not a lot of time to spare.
(12:35):
And so I was on the runway inDallas waiting to fly to Miami.
Everything was on time.
Everything was going smoothly.
And then the next thing I know,we're sitting on the runway in
line in Dallas waiting to takeoff.
Starting to make me anxious andworry me that I was going to
(12:58):
miss my flight from Miami to theBahamas because it was already
the last flight of the night bythe time I got in Miami.
So if I didn't get there, Iwould have to stay overnight in
Miami and she would be aloneanother night in the Bahamas.
I already missed her so much.
I already didn't like her beingthere alone.
(13:19):
And I'm freaking out.
We're just sitting on the runwayin Dallas waiting for this
flight to be cleared to takeoff.
It sure is shit.
It takes 45 minutes almostexactly for us to take off from
(13:40):
our original departing time.
I'm panicking.
I'm trying not to.
Almost the whole time I'mtelling myself like, all right,
stay calm.
Don't panic.
Things are going to work out.
And I'm really just trying totalk myself down from getting
(14:00):
too anxious and too upset.
So one of the ways I decided todo that was I wanted to go talk
to the flight attendants andsay, hey, I got like literal
minutes left.
Five minutes when we hit theground to get to my gate to
catch my flight to the Bahamasand I'm meeting my fiance in
(14:23):
Brazil and I have a limitednumber of days that I can
actually see her.
A lost night is a big loss forus because we already don't get
to see each other very much.
And so they were cool about itand they gave the whole spiel
over the the speakers foreveryone on the flight that when
(14:46):
we land to let the people thatare going to the Bahamas to the
front of the plane so they canexit and be the first to leave.
And so we landed.
We took our time, of course,getting up to the tarmac and
getting our door opened where wecould get out.
And I was literally the firstone out of the plane.
(15:08):
First one out of the plane.
First time that had everhappened.
And I'm fast walking my waythrough the tunnel to get into
the airport.
And I get two, three steps intothe airport.
And I hear over the loudspeaker,last call for anyone boarding a
(15:32):
flight to Nassau, Bahamas.
Last call.
We're going to be closing thegate.
Last call.
And so now I have this backpackon my back.
And I have these vans, flats,canvas shoes on my feet.
And I'm like, there's no fuckingway I'm missing this flight.
(15:53):
So I find out the boarding gate,which is literally on the other
side of the airport.
I was in C something or Dsomething.
I don't even remember anymore.
And I had to get all the way toA something.
So I start sprinting it.
Now, mind you, I'm not in greatshape yet to this point.
(16:14):
I've been working out and I'vebeen trying to get in better
shape.
But I had mostly been doing thatby lifting and walking.
I had bad knees and a bad lowerback from my time in the
military.
And just also from beingsedentary when my health wasn't
good.
And now all of a sudden I'msprinting my ass across the
(16:39):
Miami airport with probably a 20pounds on my back.
It was really bringing me backto the army days.
I was in army boots, but Iwasn't sprinting.
We did run sometimes, but itwasn't a sprint.
It was a jog, but I'm literallysprinting.
And I mean, going as fast as Ican until I'm sucking wind so
(16:59):
badly.
I'm loudly sucking wind in theairport, running down the
hallways and people are lookingat me like I'm crazy.
But I didn't care.
I had one goal in mind, and thatwas to get to that terminal so I
could board that flight on time.
(17:20):
And so I sprint and I getthrough, I get to the gate and I
noticed the door hasn't closedyet.
And I was so excited.
And I get there and the ladysees me running and she's like,
all right, come on, hurry up.
And she's like, were you on theflight from Dallas?
I said, yeah, but I sprinted thewhole way here.
(17:42):
I doubt anyone is going to beright behind me.
It's going to take some time foreveryone to get here.
And they were just basically,oh, then they're going to miss
the flight.
And I was so happy to have madeit.
I get to the plane.
I'm sweating.
I'm breathing heavy.
I'm feeling tingling andnumbness and pain all over my
(18:05):
body.
that I didn't, still theadrenaline was flowing through
me, but I didn't know how thatwas going to affect me, but I
knew I had made the flight.
And so she lets me on and shecloses the door almost
immediately behind me.
And so I go and I get on theplane, which honestly was maybe
(18:26):
at 40% capacity or less, maybe30%.
I really wasn't sure, but I knewthere were plenty of rows that
had one person in the entirerow, my row included.
We're sitting there on thetarmac before we even back out,
before we even hit the runwayfor 20 to 25 minutes.
(18:49):
And I'm just thinking, oh, arethey going to let these people
that were behind me that landedfrom Dallas, are they going to
let them get on the plane?
That must be the reason.
They're not giving us anyexplanation.
We're literally sitting herewaiting.
And so after about 20 minutes,nobody else had boarded the
(19:10):
plane and we start backing outto make our flight to the
Bahamas.
And I think, huh, that's weird.
We sat there for a long time.
Nobody else boarded and we'rejust now taking off.
And I was super excited that Ihad made it.
I knew that Juliana wasn't goingto have to be alone for another
(19:31):
night, that I wouldn't have tostay the night in Miami.
And so I kick back and I try torelax knowing that I made it and
it's just a small flight to theBahamas, slowing down and going
away.
I all of a sudden realized that,holy crap, my lower back hurts
(19:54):
and both of my ankles arekilling me.
Like they're just in incrediblepain.
I had never felt anything likethat in my ankles before in my
life.
I didn't know what I had done orwhat was happening to me.
I was trying to think like thewhole time I was running, I
(20:17):
didn't roll my ankles.
I didn't do anything to twist orsprain my ankles.
So that was odd.
I thought my knees would hurtand they did a little and I
thought my back would hurt andit did.
But I had no idea what the heckwas going on with my ankles.
So I arrive at the Bahamas.
(20:38):
I think it's like less than anhour flight.
Flying over this beautifulwater, these white sandy
beaches.
And I land.
And when I land, I go to theluggage area for my luggage.
It doesn't arrive.
I have to go to luggage claimand let them know, okay, my
luggage didn't arrive.
(20:58):
This is where I'm staying.
And they said they would bringit to me the next day when it
arrived.
And I finally leave the airportto see Juliana for the first
time in months.
And I was so happy and soexcited to see her, but I was
also in so much pain at the sametime that I was trying to ignore
(21:23):
it.
And I was trying to not let itbe a thing that was a problem
for us since I was now in theBahamas with her.
for the second time that I wasgoing to see her and this was
our trip that we were going toget married and the taxi driver
that had picked us up evencommented in the ride on the way
(21:43):
here I was trying to talk to herand she was so miserable didn't
want to talk and now that she'swith you she's so happy she's
like a completely differentperson he was like You can tell
this girl, she really loves youbecause she was like two
different people from when youweren't here versus now that
(22:04):
you're here.
And of course that made me feelreally good.
And so we get to the hotel and Ibooked the hotel online, of
course, because you can't see itin person.
And I get there and from theoutside, it looked fine.
But when I got to the room, itwas supposed to be a suite with
a kitchen and table and bed.
(22:25):
So now I arrived to thisdisappointing hotel room in pain
with my ankles hurting, notknowing what's going on there.
But I see her and I'm with her.
So the counterbalance is on thepositive side just because I'm
in the Bahamas.
I'm with her.
We're going to get married.
(22:48):
And everything was going to beall right.
Or so I thought.
So...
The next episode, I willcontinue from there and I will
let you know what happened inthe Bahamas and more.
Thanks again for joining andI'll talk to you next episode.
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