Recently, I made A Very Big And Very Abrupt Grown-Up Decision™. I bought my first car. The opportunity presented itself so suddenly. I'd been waiting for years to find an independent means of transportation, but the timing was never quite right. This time, it was. It was perfect. Everything just worked out.
It got me thinking about how important each day is. How anything could happen. As an anxious person, I'm pretty familiar with what-if's, but it's very rare that I actually ask myself, "What if things actually turn out okay? What if things turn out better than okay?"
If anything, this experience, which was preceded by a long and hard struggle and closely followed by another excellent bit of news, reminded me of how precious each day is. You never know what might happen! Like Forrest Gump's mama always said: "Life's like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."
I do believe that there’s a plan for my life, but I frequently make the mistake of thinking that I know what that looks like. More often than not, I’m totally wrong. Think back five years. I don’t know about you, but it's only a minor exaggeration for me to say that I couldn’t have imagined all the things I'd see and do and all the people I'd meet and become by this time, not in my wildest dreams.
Life happens. And it can be terrible and it can be wonderful, but the great news is that you're probably a human being if you're reading this right now—and human beings adapt. We do what we can. We plan and worry for the future, but, as Tolkien says, when bad times come our way,
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
We've just got to hold out through the shadows, because
"when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."
