Sticky Spots
What do you do when faced with a challenge? I am not talking about your friend who challenges you to a drinking contest, or even an athletic challenge. I am talking about the challenges who shape who you are. Like taking a pregnancy test and getting an unexpected positive. Or being homeless. The lost of a loved one. And how about those car accidents where it sounds like “I swear I only looked down for a second officer.”
These are some serious sticky spots.
Sticky spots define us. It’s like, cut the bullshit and show me who you really are, kind of spot. And all of that is interesting because, in these times we can’t lie to ourselves like we usually do. All of a sudden we are bare to the bone. We are authentic may it be good, ugly, bad, or beautiful. We are, and what is.
Maybe that is moment to moment.
The other day I was in a fender bender. “I swear officer I only looked down for a second.’ was all I was saying. What is really interesting about this story is not is not that I hit a car but about what happened after.
After the cops had all left and the tickets were given out. The other person involved in the accident had left in an ambulance. And I was sitting on a curb next to my now very beat up van. Maybe I was crying a little. Maybe I was crying a lot. I started feeling really bad for myself in the “oh poor pitiful me” kind of way.
This van is everything. Shelter from the elements and all the scary things at night. This van had taken me across the United States and helped me run away from heart break and there I was on the street corner with my busted up van feeling lonely in the worst kind of way. Then this little beat up truck parked right in front of me and I thought “great, thanks dude perfect timing”. The guy gets out and asks if I am waiting for a tow assuming he might be in the way. He looked so familiar and he was looking at me like he might know me too. Then I realize it was one of the captains I knew from working on the ferry years ago. What are the odds of that!
Not only did he lend a hand in getting my van back on the road he told me that he now owns a farm and deals with solar energy on a large scale, like whole communities and businesses. I had been looking for months to find someone who knows about solar because I want to make the stream bean energy efficient and off grid. Now I have this great contact and I think I can make this happen.
Now Fergie the plumbing van is getting a face lift at a very reasonable price, and I am learning yet another lesson. I am learning to get through the sticky spots and to stay present until the miracle happens.
