Last night I was driving home from Little Rock when I got caught up in another one of those crazy storms we've been having lately. Luckily this wasn't a do or die situation or even one with the torrential winds that we've been having lately either. No, it was just extremely heavy rain and a lot of lightning. Note a LOT of lightning. As I drove I settled in that awareness kind of feeling when you are not panicking, but you're not relaxed either. You're sort of in a happy medium that could get overly off balanced at a moments notice, but it is a calm and collective sort of feeling that you need to be in while you drive in bad weather conditions. Its what got me through the various trips to Idaho over the last few years, through a horrific blizzard heading from Salt Lake to Rexburg in the middle of the night, leaving the crazy events in Park City and now this. I think I drove at a max of 40mph on the freeway and thought about a few things as I drove.
First was my inability to see very far in front of me. I could see maybe a good 50 yards or so through the rain, but the rain that's kicked up by other cars as they pass or were in front of me made it a little harder. Also impeding my vision were the headlights of cars behind me. However, the taillights of the cars in front of me guided me to where I needed to be. That was the first lesson learned. Sometimes life is a rainy road and we're just driving down it and have no choice but to push through it. Its hard to see as is, but sometimes you have those behind you either in life, your past, or just people you don't know who are getting in your way, all making it harder for you to see ahead because they have their bright lights on behind you. Sure it may illuminate your immediate area, but it makes it more difficult to see very well. On the other hand there are those who are in front of you whom occasionally you get behind. They are taking the brunt of the storm and driving slowly sure, but are picking up the hard end of things. Because they are doing this however you can benefit by following the light they leave behind. Its slow going but it helps you see where you are.
The other lesson I learned had to do with the lightning itself. There was a lot of it and it was flashing roughly every few seconds. In retrospect that was not a safe drive to be making but oh well. The lightning always came from one side of the road or the other it seemed. Occasionally out of the corner of my eye I'd look at it, or if a particularly impressive bolt came down I would glance then keep glued to the road in front of me. More often that I was comfortable with there would be a huge number of flashes right in front of me that lit up the sky brilliantly. In any normal circumstance it would have been pretty and helpful to light through the darkness. However, with all the rain all it did was illuminate the rain and causing me to not be able to see hardly anything at all. Lucky for anyone driving, they have those lines painted in the road to guide you to where it goes, turns, and stops. Sometimes in life there are really flashy things that distract us to where we are trying to go. Sometimes we don't look at them, sometimes we take our eyes off the road to get a better look, and occasionally they flash in front of us almost in a tantrum for us to pay attention. When this happens it makes it very difficult to see where we need to go. Its a matter of where you focus your attention that will help you get through it.
Eventually I managed to outrun the storm and its downpours. The rain fluctuated from very heavy to sprinkling back to heavy to eventually being behind me. This is also true for life. Sometimes we just have to bear it and wait till it passes, sometimes we need to barrel through it and leave it behind. Either way, storms always pass eventually. It just takes a little know how, focusing your attention, and staying on target to get through them safely or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment