Detours & Dead Ends

Between work and home, I encounter three separate and equal road construction areas. Traffic slows to a crawl while road workers - some of whom I suspect are enjoying this temporary empowerment over hurrying vehicles and harried drivers - direct us to stop, turn, go back, or just wait. I live nearby and access the side streets easily, arriving home before some of my fellow drivers have been cleared to pass. Travel and traffic, I think to myself, yet another metaphor for life.

I live on a quiet dead end street amid neighbors I barely know except to wave to when we happen to be coming or going at the same time. We are all too pressed for time and too self involved to interact or get to know each other, too busy working and living and trying to maintain the pace to spare a moment for our common interests. The pursuit of life with all its detours and dead ends consumes us, as if it's a race we can actually win. I find myself wanting to take several steps back to a time when I saw the finish line as just one more square on the checkerboard, one more checkpoint to pass through. When I'm too weary of obstacles and adversity and can't see the end of the road, I try and take a deep breath, try to remind myself that it's the journey that matters. Who you meet along the way and the connections you make, how you treat others and how you are treated in return matter more than what time you arrive. We begin with nothing and no matter how low we fall or high we rise, we all end with nothing. All that really counts is the in between time and how we use it - we can grow and learn and do good or we can get stuck and stagnate. It's always our choice.

So, I tell myself as I ease on down the road and wave to the anonymous couple across the street, pass the children waiting for the school bus and stop briefly to talk with the man who cuts my grass,
it's a clear, sunny spring day and I'll make the most of it. Living is a process, a learning experience, as unpredictable as the weather. Detours and dead ends are just travel advisories.