An @SouthFayetteFan Fireside Chat: Churning in 2020 - The year of sadness?
Special credit on this one goes out to @mamathompson who has identified a source of sadness that I feel permeates our community of DISchurners...
First off - I'd like to make it known that nothing I'm about to say is intended to disrespect the larger picture in all of this. Life, Finances, Futures, etc., certainly take precedence. Others point to what certain groups (i.e. children, seniors in HS, etc.) are losing right now, and I do not mean to invalidate that either...BUT can we just take a moment and mourn churning in 2020 and the abundance of travel that this game provides for, that has been cut off in the midst of this current situation.
Our lives are finite, we redeem our days for work, for parenting, for other worldly duties, and as churners, we complete these tasks and handle these responsibilities with a hope that is often founded in the respite that our trips, nay the fruits of our churning labor, bring to us! Moments, memories, and meaningful time set aside to step back from the daily life and seek that which brings us all a shared joy: travel!
Yet in the midst of all of this, we are losing days. Days, that we will never get back. Our sons and daughters will never be this age again. Other family may have limited time left with us (or limited time with ability to travel). Our vacation time at work also may have limitations, policies that restrict our abilities to roll them forward into the future.
If you're sad that you're losing a trip...if you're worried that you're going to lose a trip...THAT IS OK! If you feel selfish even thinking about the potential of a trip...DON'T! It doesn't make you a heartless selfish person... we can certainly balance frustration and sadness over the larger picture with our personal feelings on where it hits home the most with us!
Allow me to get personal for a moment (not typically something I like to do in a fireside chat):
I had somebody at work recently ask me why I don't just reschedule the trip I'm worried about in June. (Now not to pick on a generation...but as a childless millennial I think they may have been out of touch with what a summer for a family of 4 looks like). I said, "Well, between golf camp, soccer camp, basketball camp, cheerleading camp, bible school, a family reunion, summer swim team, and coordinating the schedules of 3 different family units... rescheduling something we put on the calendar 7 months ago isn't exactly easy." Now who knows if half of these events will even happen... but sometimes it isn't as easy as "just reschedule!"
My parents are getting older, and as many of you know our Captiva trip each year is my slice of paradise. Basically it's the week I work for all year. And it's in the cross-hairs, and it might be lost, and I don't know that we can reschedule it yet. And as I pondered the words of
@mamathompson earlier, I thought to myself: "how many more Captiva trips do we have like this?" Parents getting older, my kids getting older, my sister probably going to start a family at some point. What if we only have 10 of these left...or 5 of these left...what if we just lost one of those 5?? It's sad, it really is! This is a trip we've done 7 straight years... and if I had my way we'd do it 20 more in a row!
But I digress from the personal stuff - I think we all in some way are feeling that right now. That special trip for a 13 year old. That last trip as a family before somebody moves out to college. The first trip for a new addition to the family.
And you know what, it's ok to feel bad about that! And I get it, you can't just reschedule!! And even if you can, it might not be the same...and it's ok to be frustrated about that too!
Some simple reminders and takeaways:
- Some people here go on trips monthly, it'd be easy to criticize their sadness and say "well at least you went on 3 trips already this year". DON'T DO THAT... their sadness is valid!
- Some people here are only able to go on ONE trip a year, share in their sadness and realize how difficult it may have been for them to arrange that
- Some people are losing major international trips that aren't easy to put together, respect the effort that may have gone into that and understand that moving that trip could mean hours upon hours of work and lost value of their money and points.
- Some people are losing annual trips that seem repetitive, illogical even, embrace the fact that their style is different than yours and maybe that trip is special to them in some way that you can't even comprehend.
So friends, we rally together right now and realize that while the "burn" portion of the hobby is on hold, all we can do is embrace the "earn" portion and encourage one another and especially support one another in what I would say are very valid feelings of sadness.
We will never get today back...and somebody somewhere missed out on something today...and it's ok to be sad about that.
Thanks for the info on your UR refunds. I think I'm going to book one way United flights to Hawaii soon using URs. Our trip won't be until Christmas, but hopefully the cancellation policies with Chase/United will be similar if a second wave were to come through then. Worst case scenario, the flights are 25k URs pp so I'm our 50k URs. Not ideal, but also not the end of the world. I'm still going to wait a while before booking return flights home form HNL to see how the situation is shaping up. It's much easier to find out flights out of there, but the good flights to Kauai are harder to find. 
