Unfinished business

She's a wonderful woman, my wife. I started a conversation with her that I should have started 18 months ago (well, I'm a bloke, okay?). She said: "Yes, I've been thinking about that," and suggested 3 options to resolve the issue.

Suddenly, a potential problem was no longer a piece of unfinished business.

I have had another piece of business going on, which I didn't even realise was unfinished. I was playing around with an article ostensibly about clever budget ways to get from the airport to the hotel, without spending big bucks on a taxi.

A client had managed to book me into a (modest) hotel on completely the wrong side of the CBD from both the airport bus terminal and the job the next morning. I found a free shuttle bus that went to even that hotel, patting myself on the back for having done so.

As I was writing, it sort of emerged that the piece was not a helpful travel-tip blog at all, but a lament for lost status. Life used to be like this:

• A big black car would waft up to my front gate and Peter would whisk me in a comfortable cocoon to the airport.
  
• Even when I was flying economy, my god-almighty but hard-earned frequent flyer status got me preferential check-in, frequent upgrades and very decent food and wine in the no-riff-raff lounge
  
• At the other end, depending on the city I landed in, Spiros or another equivalent would collect me in a similar cocoon at the other end to take me wherever I was going.
  
• If the plane was delayed or cancelled, I'd be flicked onto the next flight ahead of the other punters without even being asked.
  

I swear, when I first saw George Clooney in Up in the Air, I thought it was about me, right down to the slip-on shoes to get through security faster, and definitely the same status obsession.

Those were the days, I was telling myself too often, sitting on some shuttle bus or other and trying to feel virtuous about it.

The kind of clients I work for now I wouldn't consider putting to that kind of expense, and I am certainly too much of a tight-arse to pay for it myself. I'm hanging on by a thread to some residual frequent flyer status, but even that is going to evaporate in a couple of months.

But I think I may finally be close to getting over the trappings of status, and finishing that piece of business.

Brigitte and I just did an overseas trip where we had no lounge access and check-in 3 hours ahead. Buying a drink at the airport bar. Finding the cheapest airport transfers and being pleased with ourselves for having done so. And hey, it was okay.

I guess the issue about unfinished business is recognising that it is actually unfinished. For me, that means usually means picking up the signals – little things that keep recurring like thinking or talking, with mild regret rather than fondness, about the good old days. Someone I don't really want to talk to, or something I am reticent to talk about.

I have someone who has unfinished business with me, and it will probably always be that way. I have finished it on my side, and unilateral finishing can be a challenge, but sometimes it's all that may be possible.

But gee, that champagne in the no-riff-raff lounge was nice. Even though I am getting close to qualifying as riff-raff myself.