Our Costa Rica Adventure: A Gift, A Plan, and the Moment it all Fell Apart
A graduation gift, two weeks of planning, and the moment it all fell apart. Here's what caring for your story and yourself looks like when life gets messy and unpredictable.
EVERYDAY STORY WORKSTORY & FORMATIONCOSTA RICA SERIES
Our Costa Rica Adventure: A Gift, a Plan, and the Moment It All Fell Apart
Some gifts start long before the wrapping paper.
This one started with a dream — to take our daughter to Costa Rica as a celebration of her high school graduation. Not just a trip, but a gift. Something meaningful. Something that said: we see you, we're proud of you, and we want to mark this moment in a way you'll never forget.
So I did what I do. I dove in.
For two weeks I researched, planned, and built out what felt like the perfect itinerary. Flights, hotels, activities, logistics — all carefully considered, all thoughtfully chosen with her in mind. I checked rates the day before I was ready to book, just to confirm everything was still lined up.
And then I went to actually book it.
Gone.
The flights.
The hotel.
The rates I had been carefully planning around — unavailable.
Just like that.
What made it so much harder was the timing. Graduation was days away. The window I had imagined for this gift was closing fast, and in that moment everything in me felt the pressure of there is no time and there are no resources to figure this out. The dream I had been carefully nurturing for two weeks — the one I had wrapped up in love for my daughter — felt like it had just slipped through my fingers at the worst possible moment.
If you've ever felt that particular kind of heartbreak and disappointment, you know.
It's not just frustration about logistics.
It goes deeper than that.
And that's exactly when learning how to notice and care for my story showed up.
Getting Curious Instead of Catastrophizing
One of the most important things I've learned through exploring my own story is that our reactions are rarely just about the thing in front of us. The moments when everything falls apart have a way of activating something older — something that's been living in our story long before this specific situation arrived.
So instead of just pushing through, I got curious.
What was actually happening inside me? What story was being activated beneath the frustration? Was this just about flights and hotel rates, or was something more familiar showing up — something about effort not being rewarded, about failing the people I love, about not being enough to make something amazing happen for my daughter in this important moment?
Sitting with those questions, even briefly, changed how I was able to move forward.
Leaning Into My Support Matrix
Here's something I want to be honest about: I didn't navigate this alone.
One of the things I have worked hard to build — intentionally, over time, through a lot of careful curation — is a support matrix. People who know my story, who will stay in the room with me, who I can turn to when I need to be witnessed in a hard moment rather than just told what to do as well as concrete strategies that I have developed that help to support my anxious nervous system and racing thoughts.
I leaned into all of it.
I let myself be known in the frustration instead of just white knuckling through. I received the support that was offered instead of deflecting it. I used the skills I've been practicing — staying present, regulating my nervous system, resisting the pull toward shame and catastrophizing — and I gave myself permission to not have it all figured out immediately.
And from that more grounded, more supported place, I started again.
The Next Right Step
It took creativity. It took flexibility. It took grieving the original plan enough to actually let it go and build something new. But we found a way. Costa Rica is still happening — just differently than I first imagined.
And honestly? That feels deeply appropriate for this whole journey.
Because that's what caring for yourself and your story does. It doesn't promise that things will go as planned. It equips you for the moments when they don't — to stay curious instead of reactive, to reach for connection instead of isolation, to find your next right step from a place of groundedness rather than panic.
What's Coming: My Story, My Family, and Costa Rica
This trip is going to be so much more than a vacation. It’s a celebration, a sacred ritual, a time to forge new parts of myself and my story and be with people I care deeply about who are on this journey with me.
I'm bringing my curiosity, my journal, and my full attention to how my story shows up — even (especially) when I'm far from home and out of my routine.
Here's a peek at some of what's coming in this Costa Rica series:
What I'm taking that isn't in my suitcase — the internal stuff we bring on every trip whether we mean to or not
What traveling together reveals — how shared experiences surface the best and hardest parts of our relationships
When things don't go as planned — staying curious instead of reactive when the unexpected happens (spoiler: it always does when traveling!)
Beauty as a portal — what creation stirs in the soul and why wonder matters to spiritual formation
What I'm bringing home as souvenirs — the reflections, the shifts, and the stories I'll carry back with me
Humaning is messy and unpredictable.
But it's also, sometimes, really beautiful — especially when we're paying attention and noticing the beauty.
I'd love for you to follow along.
And as always, I'd love to bear witness to your story too.
Life Happens. Story Matters. Let's Human Together.
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Clover, SC 29710
CONTACT
lita@storyworkinprogress.com