Speed Bumps

Everyone’s dealt with them in traffic: the speed bump.  Near intersections, school crossings, hospitals, etc. And we drive over them and go on our way. But what about those speed bumps life throws at us?  Unexpectedly? Or maybe we weren’t paying attention and all-of-a-sudden we feel that jarring feeling, and think, what was that? Being sick is one of those speed bumps for me. As a fairly healthy person in good shape, being in bed, sleeping 16 hours a day, with breaks to take whatever is alleviating the symptoms I’m facing, is not my favorite way to go through a day. There’s no guilt, per se, as it happens to everyone, but I’m just annoyed, because, like all exceptional people—and aren’t we all?—THIS doesn’t happen to ME!!! So there’s annoyance, and then acceptance, and then the turning into a four-year-old again when people ask how you’re doing. And all adults do this. I do. You do. Even if we’re reluctant to admit it.  But that’s not all bad, though.  Embracing the child in you allows you to sleep peacefully, knowing you’re being watched over—yes, even when alone—and lets you give yourself permission to have hot chocolate in the middle of the day, with whipped cream(!), and then go back to sleep to rest until whatever ails you decides it’s had enough, and departs. And then it’s back to work, to school, to life, and to pick up the pieces we put down during our time out.

But…what if those speed bumps are more continuous? A bad road perhaps? The continuous onslaught of a bad job, or relationship, or situation that just doesn’t go away, like a cold or other temporary discomfort, and we are forced to deal with it day in and day out? Not something hot chocolate, even with whipped cream, can make us see in a different light. How do we deal with those? Initially, we can search for a scapegoat, that harbinger of doom bringing this upon us, causing all this trouble for us, and seeking to get rid of its presence. Scapegoats, of course, are not the cause of whatever ails us, but the wished-for ‘reason’ for our situation.  Looking deeper into the cause of our discomfort sometimes brings us way too close to home: a look at ourselves. Of our habits. Of our desires. Of the things that keep us doing the same things every day, yet expecting different results. No, it’s not a jarring ‘speed-bump’ bounce and on the way, but more a wake-up call to change things on a permanent level. To look deeper and ask why we are doing something in a particular way, at a particular time, when we can see and feel it’s not serving us. Being comfortable with where we are is a human trait, and we are sometimes more ‘comfortable’ being ‘uncomfortable’ with a known habit, trait, or behavior, than we are in trying to change something for the better. EVEN WHEN WE KNOW THAT CHANGE IS THE BETTER WAY. This can be so hard to face. When we face it at all. But it is the only way out of the daily ‘insanity’ that accepting something we know to be harmful presents. It’s why we call a friend and say, ‘I need help with this, because I can’t always see it.’ Or why we create a way of changing things, in small ways perhaps, that allow us to begin to change our behavior to avoid these incessant ‘speed bumps.’

It can be writing every day. My favorite. Or planning a garden. Or simply deciding what the future can be is far more enticing than what is, and then taking those baby steps, each minute, each day, to beginning to LIVE each day differently than before.