There are times in everyone’s life… Well, Ok… in my life where I feel like I’m on a roller coaster in the dark. This week has been one of those times. You know how they go…
You board the ride with a good idea of what the track is supposed to look like or what the ride is all about, hoping for the thrill of a life time.
As you coast out through the first tunnel, the darkness takes hold and you begin to question the sanity of boarding the ride. The first hill brings anticipation. Up … Up… Up! Your mind races between “This is going to be the best decision I’ve ever made!” to “Oh, Crap!!!” because you know there’s a big drop up ahead looming closer and closer in the darkness . You can’t see just where.
The big hills bring exhilaration, but they also bring terror. You plunge downward into the unknown. Your heart racing as your brain tries to pinpoint subtle signs in the dark. Some glimmer that might give you a hint of whether this is going to feed you on to the top of the next big hill or send you crashing to your doom on the unseen ground below.
Then there are the twisty, loopy bits of track. They toss and turn you until you have no bearing of which way is up. These are the times you really question each turn and bump as it comes at you. You don’t know what they’ll be, but you know there coming.
Ahhh yes! The braking strip is next. This is your defining moment. Was this ride worth it? Was it what you thought it would be? Sometimes the braking strips are gentle but more often they are surprisingly abrupt, throwing you up against the restraints. If the ride has been good, they elicit laughter and applause. Bad ride and they drive home the pain and disappointment of the experience.
As I coast into the station of this past week, I take each portion of track one at a time through my mind’s eye. Individually, there were parts that were absolutely terrible. Other parts that I thought would suck, were pretty good. As I put them all together, they become one whole experience.
This is what I call the roller coaster of life. Individual events bring me down, lift me up, throw me for a loop, batter and bruise me. Take any one section of track in turn and I might say my life sucks or it’s great. Put them all together and they become the fabric of who I am… Who you are. The great thing is …. This roller coaster is never finished. It changes and grows as we do. It lives on long after we’re gone in the people who we share are lives with.
This week wasn’t the best ride. It wasn’t the worst either. I look forward to getting on the train again and heading off to see what changes have been made this time.
Enjoy the ride—
~Cap