A FRIENDLY DRIVE
I was driving down the road the other day, when I flipped
out. It wasn't a new song on the radio. It was the curb that caused it. Before
I knew it I was doing summersaults.
My car landed right side up and I staggered out. I,
literally, spit glass out of my mouth as I gazed disbelievingly at my car.
People stopped and were asking me questions, but I just alternated nodding and
shaking my head without listening to them.
My car ... me?
Not a bruise. Not a cut. The glass didn't even cut the
inside of my mouth. Not one thing was wrong with me… No, I wasn't wearing my
seat belt.
As my brain finally started excepting messages my eyes were
sending it, I noticed my windshield lying a few feet from the car, shattered,
but nearly whole. My newly bought side mirrors were, naturally, broken off.
There was mud allover my car as luckily I had rolled on grass instead of
pavement. The passenger side of the roof was smashed in a bit, my door was bent
in, and the right rear fender was smashed.
Someone said I must have been listening to the radio to hit
a rock and roll.
Somehow I got the idea of trying to start my car. Since no
damage was done to the hood or anything under it, I got the car started without
any trouble.
I ended up driving the car home, with no windshield in below
freezing temperatures. I shook all the way home, partially from the cold and partially
from shock.
One the way home I thought of something that Winston
Churchill once said, one of my favorite quotes—
"Men
occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and
hurry off as if nothing happened."
I made it home without getting pulled over, even though it's
illegal to drive without a windshield.
I can still remember (in flashes) that sensation of turning
upside down and rolling. Things flashed by so fast. I saw parts of my life in
quick, unrelated glimpses. Then, in mid roll, I thought to myself, "This
is a dream."
Microseconds later I realized it wasn't a dream, that my car
was rolling over and I was in it, and that I would be late for work. I wondered
why it rolled. Was I rolling up a hill? Through lanes of traffic? Was I dying?
Had I ever lived? Was my car paid off? Did I have clean underwear?
A feeling soon to be forgot, but a time long remembered. If
the feelings that one has during an uncontrollable moment in one's life could
be totally recalled, I doubt if many mistakes would be repeated. But the only
thing that is truly remembered are the after affects, and they never seem to be
quite as bad.
Yes, how easily feelings are forgot.
Trying times can test us and show what we're made of. I'm
not sure what I'm made of, but I know that I don't like tests.
It sounds unusual, but I think Cicero made a lot of sense
when he said,
"There is something pleasurable in calm remembrance of a
past sorrow."
Maybe it's just the fact that the adversity has been
survived, and it makes present adversities seem conquerable. Something Friedrich
Nietzsche said helps shed light into Cicero's statement:
"What does not destroy me
makes me strong."
You are stronger from living through past sorrows. Also past
troubles seen through memory's eye always are less sharp and out of focus then
is the pain of present problems.
Remember the lesson of the day
— Brakes, steering and even good friends can fail. To remain strong without
becoming bitter is the trick. Friends don't care about your failures, and they
care only to beat your successes. The best one can ask of a friend is to tell
the truth when you need it, also to lie when you need it, and to listen nearly
as often as they talk. Many times I find myself praying like Marshall de
Villars.
— "God save me from my
friends
I can protect myself from my enemies."
I expect distress from my enemies but when it comes by way
of friends it is unbearable. I guess I just have to learn something that Agnes
Macphail put well by saying,
“Do not rely completely on any other human being, however
dear. We meet all life's greatest tests alone."
I guess when you have news that makes your life miserable
the best thing a friend can do, from his point of view, is to exclude you from
his life so you don't make him share in your misery.
"Heaven for climate, hell for company." — James M. Barrie.
Half my friends are in heaven, and the rest just have their
heads in the clouds.
Dearly befriended,
รจim
Uhr
P.S. It's funny the way
one thinks of friends
in times of sorrow. I
can usually think of
them, but I can't talk
to them.
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