In May of 2022, a few days before flying to Europe to visit London and Paris, I got COVID-19 (COVID) and had to cancel my trip. I was devastated to say the least, but 2022 was also a time where I was becoming Shaunda 2.0, (see Living My Best Life) so I did my best to remain calm.

Per 2022 travel guidelines, the U.S. required all travelers to test negative for COVID before re-entering the country. Three days before my flight, I had an extremely runny nose which prompted me to take a COVID test to put my anxious mind at ease. I didn’t want to risk being stranded in a foreign country should I test positive for COVID before returning home. Therefore, I went to a drive-thru testing center and was informed the results would take twenty-four hours. Tic-Toc…. I get a message that my results are ready. As I clicked through several links to get the results, it dawned on me that I am clicking way too much for a negative test. And with that being noted, my COVID results were positive. “You gotta be kidding me” I said to myself uttering disappointment while the feeling of sorrow sank to my stomach.

Thankfully, I had travel insurance and all was not lost. I was able to cancel tours, hotels, and get credit for my plane ticket, which I used later for a different destination. Once I’d taken care of the administrative side of the canceled trip, I dealt with my feelings. My thoughts oscillated from being ok and not being ok. Finally, I settled on the good ole cliché “everything happens for a reason”. During the required quarantine period, which also helped me recover emotionally from what I thought was the greatest trip ever, I told myself that I would indeed go to London and Paris one day. In the interim, I hired a French teacher to help me learn French as I’d never studied the language before. Fast forward to May of 2024, I went to London and Paris!

After a seven-hour flight, I arrived in London and immediately started the day. London was joy! The weather was exceptionally warm, and people were frantically scouting restaurants with outdoor seating due to the unusual amount of sunlight. While in London, I did all of the things that felt joyful to me. I explored vintage shops, artisan markets, restaurants, and went to a few of the tourist sites, such as Big Ben, the London Eye, and Buckingham Palace. The visit was one of ease. Reservations were not made and there were no hard-core schedules, just flow. I soaked in the joy of London, and after a few days I took a train to Paris.

Paris was love! Upon arrival, I was chauffeured through the city and saw couple who had just gotten married and were taking pictures on the courthouse steps. The driver also noticed the couple and turned down the song “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll”, which he and I screamed through the lyrics together. He then pointed out that the bride had been married before as she wasn’t wearing a white dress. So…that’s still a thing. At-any-rate, the courthouse scene solidified the ambience of love. The theme of ease from London translated to Paris as there were no hard-core schedules or reservations made ahead of time. Dinner was sometimes eaten at 11 p.m. and it was the most liberating thing ever. I felt as though time evaporated. Moments were created that led me to the Louvre Museum, the Eiffel Tower, and the Arc de Triomphe which were all amazing. 

This particular trip is shared to emphasize the titled message Delayed Not Denied. The two preceding paragraphs do not come close to describing my experience, rather it is an attempt to convey a deeper meaning. In 2022, I was absolutely heartbroken that I could not go to London and Paris. Having to cancel the trip three days before made it worse. The 2022 trip was packed with scheduled tours, dinners, shows, etc. The hotels were not centrally located, which made transportation challenging during certain times. Lastly, I had already planned a trip to Greece in the Fall of 2022, so the London and Paris trip wasn’t a wise decision. However, the 2024 trip to London and Paris was better than I could have ever imagined. I have discovered that I am more of a vacationer vs. a tourist as I don’t care for packed schedules. I like leisure and exploration sprinkled with a few scheduled outings. In hindsight, I realize that I would have been miserable during the 2022 trip which had an overloaded itinerary.

I have excluded a lot of details from this post for concision purposes, but Delayed Not Denied means there is something greater for you, something you can’t begin to imagine, something that is more than what you’ve asked or planned for. The 2024 trip was one of the best times of my life, and even those words do not accurately capture what I experienced. If you are faced with a “delayed” situation in your life, I urge you to trust the very thing that appears to not be working out is actually working out. Read that again!

My delayed/canceled trip was parlayed into something incredible! The delay was merely an intermission that allowed me to take the trip I truly wanted, be prepared economically as I didn’t have two major trips close together, and learn a new language among other adventures. It was a revelatory event, a reminder that it all works out…and in due time the pieces of the puzzle will connect perfectly.