Today was the last day of the Life Teen Notre Dame leadership conference. I gave the final talk of the week this morning. I do a lot of talks and I am my own worse critic, but I felt really good about what I said. My friend nudged me after I sat down and whispered, “Dude, you just talked for forty-five minutes without notes.”

This seems to be how it always works at this conference. I hear my friends speak and play music in front of large groups all the time. But there is no time where we sound cooler than when we speak at LTND. You would think we had lots of degrees or maybe had professional coaching or something. I can’t explain it other than that God doesn’t want us to screw up this week.

I spent this afternoon with my friend Jason visiting his hometown a couple hours from Notre Dame. It had been twenty years since he lived in Illinois, so he figured that it was worth making the trip to his hometown while we were close. To really get to know someone, you have to see where they’ve come from, and that’s what I did today. It’s a unique experience to stand with another grown man in front of the tiny house where he spent the first three years of his life. We even visited the house on the other side of town that his grandfather built. It was a sentimental and memorable afternoon. After that, it turned into endless frustration.

The journey to the Chicago airport was a series of humiliating and frustrating delays. Traffic was absolutely a mess. We exited off one congested highway only to find ourselves in another bumper-to-bumper mess. We finally made our last exit and followed the Google map to the rental car place. After fifteen minutes of driving, the scenery was looking way to residential and not enough like an airport. We pulled over for directions, only to find out that our Google map told us to go in the wrong direction. It was a painful realization to know that we were so close and we ended up driving so far away.

Once we finally made our way back to the rental car place, we were met with a series of humiliating delays. The first was an old man who had parked his car in the path of the rental car bus. He finally moseyed his way outside to move this car, but it wouldn’t start. There were six of us standing at the curb, staring at him crank his car over and over again for almost five minutes.

Once we were all piled into the bus, the driver decided to walk off the bus and help people carry on their luggage. This was a nice gesture, but the couple he was going to help was in absolutely no hurry. I don’t even think they wanted a ride. They slowly walked over to the bus, but stopped before getting on. Come on!

The girlfriend in the couple decided to open up her suitcase and flipped through her things on the sidewalk. I’ve never seen someone be that slow while searching for something in the suitcase. Normally you yank open the zipper and thrash through your clothes. She acted like she was had an hour to kill. With every second that ticked, Jason and I knew we weren’t going to get a flight out today. Neither of us wanted to spend another night in a hotel.

The bus started it’s trek from one terminal to the next, dropping off rushed passengers at each stop. But when Mrs. Molasses decided to stroll out of the bus, she gestured for the bus driver to wait. She slowly walked to the sidewalk, and then sifted through her purse looking for some money. Seeing how desperate we were to catch a flight, the drive yelled back, “Maybe next time.” Maybe we’ll make it.

We darted into the airport, almost running through the automatic doors. The check-in time was over. We begged the ticket counter agents to accept us on the flight.; They called down to the baggage desk and asked if they had time for two more bags. Long silence. “Okay, give us your bags.” Yesssss!!!!

Then we sprinted through security, each of us ripping off our shoes and belts like honeymooners. Once we were laced up on the other side, the sprint continued to the gate. If we had been ten seconds later, we absolutely would have missed our flight.

Now here I am on a flight, finally cooling off after an hour and a half under these air vents. My throat was so parched, I thought I was going to pass out. But a few minutes ago the flight attendant gave me a cup of water. A glass of cold water has never felt so good.