There’s always nice weather somewhere…

I drove to the top of a hill near my house today. There was something very strange in the air. From the highest point, overlooking the valley in front of me, there were thick black clouds with intermittent bolts of lightning. I looked out my window to the left and there was a field lit completely by a bright sun. I pulled over because I felt as though there was something I was supposed to recognize in this moment. I know it sounds a little crazy, but sometimes I think that there are signs sent to everyone in everyday life that we need to choose to be able to see. I looked out the back window at the beautiful day that was before me as it shined with hope and expectation. With one simple turn of the head, I viewed the gloom of the angry winds that were bending trees and tossing their leaves from their branches. I sat there for a few minutes as though I was in the eye of all weather, protected from either of the two extremes. I noticed that I was sitting under a bunch of power lines and thought to myself as a side note, “hmm…if I’m planning on having my first child in my 50’s when I finally meet a man who doesn’t have bad phone etiquette and food in his teeth, I probably shouldn’t spend too much time under these.”…I was distracted by a crack of thunder and the thought was dismissed quickly as I giggled, realizing that children were really the least of my troubles judging from the fact that I had just pulled over to park under power lines during an electrical storm….no matter…the storm can wait! I’m having a moment! I turned my back to the storm and looked at the brightness of the sunny day and had a realization that there is always nice weather somewhere in the world. At this moment, I could choose to drive towards it. The funny thing was though, that in order to get to where I was going, I had to drive into the storm….the even stranger thing was that I sort of wanted to.

Is it human nature to want drive directly into a storm?…I mean…doesn’t it seem that the bright and sunny days seem that much brighter when the day before was dark? I wonder if we welcome the drama of our troubles in order to fill our cravings for excitement? If every single day were without incident, people would forget to recognize how great the good stuff really is.

So what is it about me that left me frozen, not going in either direction? Where I sat, I was protected from all of the elements (of course, other than my pending electrocution…but I had a plan…I wasn’t dumb enough to complete the circuit with my own body. The car tires would assure my survival!…there I go again…always taking the safe route of irresponsibility!)…I suppose what I was meant to take away from this moment that had pulled me over, was that as long as I remain protected from the sun or the storm in the eye of nothingness where there was only room for me, I would never meet the people who are just down the road enduring that storm together.

I pulled out and continued towards the lightning. Really…what could happen?