update: five-and-a-half-hour drives to nowhere

okay, first of all, i don't know how, exactly, one sustains a thumb injury while sleeping, but my thumb is MESSED UP today.  what was i doing in my sleep last night?  playing nintendo?  thumb-wrestling a viking?

ouch.

anyway, last week was rough.  there wasn't a specific reason for it being so rough, really.  it was just one of those weeks where my general surliness attracted all sorts of bad stuff and by the end of the week i was pretty much surrounded by a ball of angry crap. so saturday, i took the day off.  i know saturday is technically the weekend and is already a day off, but for me, saturdays are always filled with cleaning, laundry, mopping, grocery shopping, planning menus, and all that stuff.  so instead of doing those things, i hopped in my car and went for a drive.  for five and a half hours. 

i went to my favorite, prettiest, middle-of-nowhere places where i had room to breathe and relax and scrape off some of the collected crap of my week.  at first i was a little zoned out, just taking deep breaths and looking at nature and barely thinking at all.  then i was cranky.  then, i finally started to reflect on why i was so dang cranky and what i could do about it.  turns out, i was mostly cranky because things weren't going exactly how i wanted them to.  i would plan one thing and something completely different would happen.

if there's one thing i've learned in the past year and a half, it's that everything happens for a reason.  everything.  i've started seeing my life as a big puzzle in which every incident is an important, interlocking part of the whole.  like if that girl hadn't said that hurtful thing in the sixth grade, then i wouldn't have felt this way, and then this and this and this wouldn't have happened, and then that wouldn't have led up to this wonderful thing that happened in my life. (actually, once i started seeing all of the connections, i actually got a little freaked out for a while because it was like i had just opened a door and gotten a rather sublime peek at the intricate workings of the universe without meaning to.)  with that in mind, i started picking apart all of these things that were happening that weren't going the way i wanted them to.  instead of dwelling on what had or hadn't happened as planned, i started thinking about what good things might (or already had) come from the change of plans.

goodness, i felt so much better after that. it really helps to be able to identify what i'm feeling and why i'm feeling it, honestly recognize my feelings as being valid, and then pick them apart and resolve them. after i started resolving things, i kept going, driving fast with the windows down, down roads hardly anyone else even seems to know about.  i could feel all the bad feelings just sloughing off and getting left on the road behind me like little dirt clods.  by the time i got back to my apartment (minus half a tank of gas, plus a sunburnt left arm) i was feeling oh so much better-- like when you step out of the shower all nice and clean after a very grungy day.  it was lovely.

today, i feel grateful for the changes of plans in my life, for the puzzle pieces that are fitting together to create something that i can't see quite yet.  i'm grateful for this state i live in, with all of its beautiful places to disappear to.  i'm grateful for my little black car and my freedom to make my own choices, and i'm grateful for all of the people who have taught me the important lessons i didn't really want to learn.  i'm even grateful for my messed-up thumb.  and i'm sure someday, i'll figure out why.