Yesterday I had to make a trek back to where I used to live, which is only 38 miles away - but you would never know it.  It typically takes 1.5 hours to drive that at prime time rush hour.  I have become so spoiled by my gorgeous 15-minute drive along the coast that I had forgotten from whence I came.  And just how could I?  I have made that drive for the last four years, leaving at the crack of dawn, returning well past dusk...  

When I look back on the hardship that it must have been, I don't know how I did it.  How did I stand my time away from family?  How did I tolerate driving on a highway full of crazy drivers like myself, all trying to just get somewhere.  The fifteen hours a week stuck in horrendous traffic nearly did me in.  When I finally realized that I had an option, the choice seemed clear - it lay before me like the perfect wave.  Yes, it would be a challenge.  Yes, there was a chance for pain if not executed well.  But..., there was also the chance that I had chosen the perfect wave that would provide the perfect ride.  I took it.

When times are tough, when our hearts are broken and bank accounts low, we do what we have to do to get by.  I can name dozens of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances who faced severe hardships over the last three years.  I am sure you can, too.  Those that survived didn't give up - they fought, they made the horrendous drives, that worked with unruly candidates and non-responsive clients.  They choked on split partners that split.  But they refused to roll over and die or even play dead.

I am busier now than I have been in four years.  What if I had decided to not make that drive?  What if I had given up, citing, "It's too hard..."  There are all kinds of what if's we can ask.  Are we protected by the what if's or can they set us up for a fall?  There were months on end, when I did everything I could to put a buck in my pocket and hot dogs on my table.   I cherish the tough lessons, they are harder to forget.  And the lessons stand these test of time. 

When I was young, taking road trips with my family, my grandpa, having survived several years in World War II, used to tease that he was born in every log cabin along the way.  Laughing, we would ask, "Really?" Knowing full well he had not..., but his conviction was so real, his humor so tightened up - dry- that we so wanted to believe him, we wanted to experience any kind of joy he could conjure.  Economic hardship, war, death, life...  We all experience every day these hardships, but they can be wrapped in joy, birth, and peace.  And so it goes...

by rayannethorn