"The water in that pond looks low. The ducks aren't out today, Jenna."
"Mhmm." I nodded and turned the music down. Nanny's words went in one ear and floated right out the other to the beat of my favorite Lauren Daigle song.
My sweet Nanny sat in the passenger seat of my car and looked around for the ducks that, apparently, were missing that day.
"So look over this list and see if I left anything off that we need to get done today."
She took the list. I wanted to mumble, "Hey, can you pencil in about 30 other things I need to be doing today?" Instead, I just drove.
"Looks good to me. Hey, look at Karen's new flowers. I've never seen anything that purple."
I smiled. Purple flowers were our thing. When I was little, every time we went to Wal-Mart, I got to pick out a small flower that we would plant together.
Nostalgia halted my racing thoughts about the coming week and all of my must-do's for the day.
Nostalgia took me back to a CD I was given as a 10 year old. The album was "Enjoy the Ride" by Sugarland. On the cover, there was a scene similar to what anyone who has been on the spinning teacups at Disney World has experienced. I remember holding the CD like it was the golden ticket and I was about to tour a chocolate factory. Jennifer Nettles is from my hometown, and anyone who knows me knows that I adore her. I studied the cover.
"Enjoy the ride."
It was printed in small letters. For years, that image and those words were associated with amusement park rides for me.
But the ducks and the purple flowers and my friend Nostalgia brought it all back to me, and this time with a new message: enjoy the ride, baby girl--really enjoy it.
This precious, temporary thing called life is just that: precious and temporary. Enjoy it.
Enjoy car rides just like my Nanny does. Notice the flowers and the ducks. Sing until your throat hurts and the person next to you at the red light looks at you like you have lost it. Then, keep singing.
Don't take yourself too seriously. You're going to fall and fail. A lot. May we learn to get back up and use our failures as trampolines to jump with both feet into new successes.
Enjoy your job. Say what?! Hum while you work and drink your coffee in the most fabulous cup you can possibly find. Seriously, do it.
Naive. That may be crossing your mind by now. "This girl doesn't know what life has handed me. It is a lot easier to type about enjoying the ride than actually doing it."
Well, this is true. It is something we must be intentional about. Super intentional.
But I do. I do know that life is tough. That's all the more reason to enjoy the moments of beauty.
This girl is not naive to hurt. She's cheered with Fear. She's sat alone with Isolation. She's Ben & Jerry-ed with Heartbreak.
But in it all, there is hope. There is beauty. There is always a reason to celebrate, and there is always something to enjoy about the life you've been handed.
Enjoy the ride. Enjoy it with the someone who can make you laugh and who knows when to cry with you.
Enjoy the moments when you are at a complete loss for words. Enjoy the moments when you have so much to say it splashes out on whoever happens to walk by.
Enjoy it with a stranger. Take your over-priced bagel and sugar-loaded coffee and ask the girl with the dark eyes if you can sit with her. Ask her about her dreams. Ask her what breaks her heart and what makes her mad. Do not be held back by the reality that you may never see that dark-eyed girl again.
Enjoy it by giving every last ounce of who you are to share with others the One who gives you that hope--that flame that cannot be blown out.
I pray that it doesn't take a purple flower and missing duck moment for you to realize all that you have been missing out on by being so busy, so consumed with what we "have to do." But it did for me, and I am thankful for the humbling reminder.
Enjoy the ride.
