After publishing 5 Years, 5 Minutes and the Happiest Place on Earth, I was contacted with the following: “Inquiring minds want to know, how does this story end?” So, for all the inquiring minds …

In the original post I wrote, “Let’s be … people who choose, and choose again and keep choosing to embrace joy, to grab it fiercely and hold on tenaciously.” Those words really are the rest of this story.

When I checked out of the hotel, I had to pay several hundreds of dollars for the repair with the assurance that there would be a partial refund coming the following week. The following week I received a bill for over $2000.00. When I questioned some of the line items, I received a bill for $2400.00. I spent hours on the phone with the hotel manager, with the maintenance supervisior, with the third party contractor who installed the tub, with his franchise headquarters in Canada. I talked with attorney’s. Finally, I obtained the contact information for the person who runs the hotel. He agreed to seek another bid from another repair company and I have not heard from them in over a month.

I don’t yet know how the story will end. I only know that this is an opportunity for me to practice choosing joy, to continue choosing it when the bad situation only gets worse, to choose it when I am tempted to worry and Anxiety, that relentless adversary, would attempt to place me in his shackles and isolate me from joy.

I chose not to let the situation steal the joy of Disneyland and being with family. That was a personal victory, but I didn’t realize at the time that the joy of Christmas would be threatened as well, that in the following days and weeks I would be confronted with the same decision, with the same choice.

This story is still a cliff-hanger. I still choose to cling to joy. I am learning what it means to cling relentlessly and how to hold on with tenancity when my grasp feels weak and the days without resolution feel long. I am hopeful that I’ve heard the last of this, but if not, well, I guess I’ll keep practicing, keep choosing.