I remember thinking, as a child, that nothing ever happened to me.
I begged for glasses a year before I got them, leaving the ophthalmologist’s office that first year without them in tears. In sixth grade, I tripped over a crevice in the dirt and when I hoped for a dramatic diagnosis of, short of an actual break, then some sort of serious sprain, I was informed, instead, that this was a strain (not a ligamental tear, but a stretch) and left without the crutches I’d longed to bring to school that would undoubtedly elicit questions and sympathy.
My family–what I knew of it, at least–remained largely untouched by death until the loss of my great-aunt when I was in high school (and our beloved dog around the same time).
Most people would call such an existence blessed. I called it boring.
So I got used to a life that remained decidedly on the tracks. Until it didn’t, and all hell broke loose, and I wanted the predictable life I’d once rued.
Yes, there was a time when my imagination didn’t stretch beyond Alabama. Thank God that grace’s did.
Derailments to my plans sent me to New York, then Atlanta (I swore I’d never live there–#traffic), then Australia. I’ve set up camp in Marriage, and Motherhood, and the Autism Spectrum, and Depression and Anxiety. I’ve relocated from one political party to sort of another, from American Evangelicalism to Anything But. I’ve nearly drowned trying to swim in an ocean I’d never dreamed of seeing. I’ve fallen as many (more) times as I’ve risen and I’ve crawled as much as I’ve run.
I’ve wiped a few asses many times and cleaned up a lot of dog vomit.
And now, as the sun sets, I’m writing this outside a hotel room on Australia’s Gold Coast (which is like America’s Gulf Shores, so…amazing). The Husband and Little Brother are playing soccer on one side of me and The Kid is setting up an airport on the table on the other. I’m drinking some kind of spritz and I’m five pounds (a couple of kilos) heavier than I’d like to be and a mosquito just bit the shit out of my arm.
Nothing is happening. Everything is.
This morning, TK wanted to return to the familiarity of the hotel room after an express breakfast, but instead the cashier at our cafe offered us bread to feed the ducks. The ducks didn’t show, but the seagulls did. I told him, on the way back to the hotel, that if we hadn’t stretched to allow the unplanned, we would have missed that.
It’s a lesson I keep repeating, and learning, and living.
I hope nothing keeps happening.