Embracing Where You Are

Embracing Where You Are

Do you remember fighting over where you’d sit in the car during a family outing?

I do.

As the oldest in my family, I relished the days I got to sit up front with my dad driving on vacations where we spent hours on the road going from Virginia to my Grandmother’s house in Nebraska. I thought I was so cool sitting in that front seat.

This weekend, I had a strikingly different realization.

I was sitting in the back seat next to my four-year-old grandson, my husband in the waaaaay back with my daughter and my son in law in the front. We were on an adventure to drive through an animated dinosaur park.

In an instant, I realized I’ve always been in exactly the right seat. 

As a child, I was safely carried through my journeys – rocky roads, bumps and all – by my parents who were driving the car. All I wanted to do was get in that front seat where I was sure the view was better. Then it was my turn. As an adult, I was responsible for driving the car, the family, as best I could on our joint journey and felt the full weight of the decisions I made along the way. I made some wrong turns. At times it was rough.

Now I’ve returned to the back seat, given my children their turn as the responsible ones driving their own families forward as it’s time for me to sit back and enjoy a familiar view.

This time I don’t want to be anywhere else. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be and now I realize that my attitude, my focus on living a life of love, is what helps when the road gets rough.

And seeing animated dinosaurs with a four-year-old boy is pretty sweet too….