Life is a Highway

So it's about three in the morning, and I am up, sipping tea, with quite possibly the world's worst cold EVER.   Okay, so I am exaggerating....But ever notice how every time you get a cold, you feel shocked, surprised, as though it has never happened before.  "What?  A cold?...... Me?"  I don't know about you, but I feel as though I am above it somehow, and always feel deeply wounded that my body, nature, whoever,... has some how let me down.

So, I am wide awake, thrashing about in my bed, wracked with coughing and thinking.  Thinking about the upcoming summer, thinking about money, thinking about the people who have the job of stuffing the pimento in the olive, but mostly thinking about my children.

See, my kids are never far from my mind.  I laugh with them, cry with them, yell with them, and cheer for them.  They are the product of every good thing I have ever done, and nothing is more important to me than their happiness and well being.  When I say happiness, I don't mean your basic "I've gotten a raise" happiness, or even the "we're getting married" kind of happiness.  Not that I am not pleased for them with that kind of news....but that is really the icing on the cake,....the gravy on the potatoes.

What I want for them is contentment, peace, joy in everyday life, friends and family who never let them forget they love them just the way they are.  I want them to see themselves through my eyes.  They are these amazing people who exist in the world who have a heart and a spirit and a love for people and not things.  (Well, mostly....we are only human, after all)  When I look at them, I see each one as a beautiful creation from God, given to me to care for and nurture.  When they cry, I cry, and when they hurt, I hurt.  Someone once said that being a mother is a lot like carrying your heart around outside your body.  It is actually more like carrying it around outside your body, during a windstorm, with bombs landing all around you, while running from a fleet of tractor trailers.  It is scary stuff.

So when they need some wisdom, some common sense answers to life's dilemmas, I try to have something to share with them, something or some solution that has worked for me.  I scramble around, thinking, and allowing myself to grope back over my life and my choices to think what brought peace to me, or at least acceptance.

So I am sitting at my desk by now, nursing a cup of tea, typing with my left hand while wiping my runny nose (constantly) with my right.  Damn this cold!

Things are going on in their lives that I can't fix, things they are going through and learning through that are part of their journey.  Their journey toward their own life of joy and wisdom.  And then it dawns on me, (again) that when they hurt and feel broken, there is the same God looking out for them that looked out for me, and the obstacles, the bumps in the road are what make us strong.  Strength.  I want that for them.

And I am remembering a story an old man once told me.  "Life is a highway.  We get a snappy little sports car and jump on the road on a sunny day.  We are all driving along, blissfully unaware that this highway we are on sometimes gets potholes, needs construction, has accidents and flat tires along the way.  When we are young, the sky is blue and the sun is high in the sky.  We ride along with our parents, our siblings, our friends, enjoying the breeze on our face.
Before long, it begins to get dark and we find ourselves navigating through the darkness, not seeing our friends and family, and feeling alone and vulnerable.  When morning comes again, we sometimes realize our parents, our friends, even our children may have gotten off at a rest stop, taken the scenic route.  We may catch back up with them or they with us, but basically our journey is now our own.We drive and drive, sometimes taking detours or getting stopped for construction.  We get slowed down in heavy traffic.  Sometimes we are sidelined by a repair that can take days or even weeks or months.  We get off at exits marked" new jobs", or" marriage" and pick someone up sometimes to go along for the ride.  Sometimes we take a wrong turn, and it can be a very long time before we are aware of it..Sometimes we don't even know we took the wrong turn until someone stops up and holds up a sign and tells us "Turn around and go back the right way".  As we travel, we gain knowledge.  Sometimes we feel road weary and just need to pull into a rest stop for a nap and some good food.  Other times we actually need to stop and get a map.  We choose bumpy roads and smooth roads and scenic roads.  We learn to linger over the beauty we see from our car window, and sometimes even get out and pay the admission to get into the park.  We drive on through rain and snow and wind.  We slide around on icy roads when we should have known enough not to be out driving in the first place.  We have to remind ourselves that it is never a good idea to drive through standing water.
After a while, we decide that the interstate might not be right for us, and we get off on an old highway, like the Rt 11 of life, and we drive along companionably with the people who have ridden most of the ride with us.  Sometimes they drive while we rest.  We go on like this until we see a beautiful lake off in the distance with the silhouette of a lone mountain in the sunset, and as we drive closer and closer, we realize this is where we have been driving to all along.  As we approach our final destination, we see our loved ones who arrived before us, we see friends and co-workers arriving in all manner of conveyance.  We look back at the way we have come, and we see many roads converging in this one place, and it is then that we realize that we have all arrived at the same place, we all just used different road maps.  And it is then that we realize that the choices we made are what formed us and shaped us into who we are today....No one else's map could have done that for us.
And looking back on it, isn't it better to have arrived with a few dings and dents from off- roading in the pursuit of something beautiful and rare than to arrive in a four door sedan with nary a scratch on it and seeing only what was visible from the road."

So, after thinking about the journey we all must take, I want you to take the scenic roads, the ones that have honeysuckle vines growing on the embankments....I want you to linger as long as you like and don't let anyone hurry you.  This is your journey, not mine, and I want you to be proud of your choices.  But please, for the sake of your worried mother, park the car before darkness falls and get a good nights rest before getting back on the road in the morning, and whatever you do.....don't forget to take the road to mom's house, frequently.

I love you all more than you can possibly imagine, and even in the dark, I see your headlights.