Today I happen to be thinking about those very cool grocery carts which are in the supermarkets now and were nowhere to be found when my kids were little. You know the ones. Some look like cars, some like rocket ships and some like fire engines. The children are deluded into thinking it was their idea to come and drive through the aisles, and they frantically steer, twisting the wheel this way and that, and they beep beep endlessly on the horn. It occurs to me that this is a powerful symbol for how I live my life. How most of us live our lives. We look busy, and we are very serious about what we do. But to think that we are "in control" is just plain cute.
So many factors change the outcome of our days, things over which we have no control whatsoever. We are impacted by the people we meet and whether they are in a good mood or bad. We are put off by weather, by news, by the price of gas. We could wake up with a cold, or a disease. Or we could wake up cheerful with the remnants of a lovely dream that carry us to lunch. As for the big questions, life and death, career, marriage, friendship, family relations, it is always so much easier to see those things with hindsight. I am grateful that a large number of my prayers have been answered with a resounding "no" over the years, even though it seemed like the end of the world at the time. Have you bumped into any of your boyfriends or girlfriends from thirty years ago? Have you wondered what you were thinking? The flip side of that is the serendipitous string of meetings that have woven their way through my life. There are people I had no right to meet who came into my story through middle school teachers, a talk-show host from New Jersey, a co-worker's boyfriend, and in the confessional at Saint Anthony's Shrine in Boston. Some of these people lived in another state. Some lived in another country. Who knew these people would become my F.B.C. (Family By Choice)? The trick is to stay open so you can recognize them when they show up. So whether I get the big job (no word yet), or how to pay for college for two brilliant boys, or how to deal with a mother and mother-in-law both dealing with dementia, is really out of my hands. I will trust the Driver of My Cart and beep beep my way through one aisle at a time.
So many factors change the outcome of our days, things over which we have no control whatsoever. We are impacted by the people we meet and whether they are in a good mood or bad. We are put off by weather, by news, by the price of gas. We could wake up with a cold, or a disease. Or we could wake up cheerful with the remnants of a lovely dream that carry us to lunch. As for the big questions, life and death, career, marriage, friendship, family relations, it is always so much easier to see those things with hindsight. I am grateful that a large number of my prayers have been answered with a resounding "no" over the years, even though it seemed like the end of the world at the time. Have you bumped into any of your boyfriends or girlfriends from thirty years ago? Have you wondered what you were thinking? The flip side of that is the serendipitous string of meetings that have woven their way through my life. There are people I had no right to meet who came into my story through middle school teachers, a talk-show host from New Jersey, a co-worker's boyfriend, and in the confessional at Saint Anthony's Shrine in Boston. Some of these people lived in another state. Some lived in another country. Who knew these people would become my F.B.C. (Family By Choice)? The trick is to stay open so you can recognize them when they show up. So whether I get the big job (no word yet), or how to pay for college for two brilliant boys, or how to deal with a mother and mother-in-law both dealing with dementia, is really out of my hands. I will trust the Driver of My Cart and beep beep my way through one aisle at a time.
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