I have an older car ('06) and for the last couple of years, it has developed a character of its own to
remind me of its age: the driver's side window does not always open or close (which can be fun at a drive-through, or when people want to talk to me), the radio acts up, and the volume button works in bizarre ways. We had to take off a visor because it wouldn't stay up. The a/c works intermittently (not fun in the summers in Merced). The key fob no longer works.
But over the last year, it developed another problem that is more serious: The car does not always start; it just won't turn over, and it takes several attempts and a lot of banging on the shift for it to kick back
on. That is frustrating - I will end up late for meetings, or will sit in a hot car waiting for it to decide to
work. Yesterday, I could not get it to work at all and missed church. Jim has tried a number of different things, put in new equipment, read every manual, watched Youtube videos, and tried to fix it again and again. Since it is intermittent, we did not see a value in taking it into the shop. Yesterday Jim tried one more thing and maybe this will be the answer. Time will tell.
But that made me think about people, how we all have our own idiosyncrasies that make us do strange
things, react oddly, or get bent out of shape over minor things. And there are plenty of people around us
who want to 'fix' us, tell us what is wrong with us, remind us of our better years, or set expectations that we can no longer fulfill. Some of us are just 'old' and have become set in our ways, and that gets passed off with an eye roll. Others of us have experienced so much trauma that we have broken systems inside
of us that need outside intervention; some of us have made decisions that harmed us. Each of us is still running, with just a lot of strange twists and turns, but doing the best we can. So, as we walk through our days, some of us shiny and beautiful (and yet broken on the inside), some of us with dents and missing parts (yet working on holding it together), some of us rusty, but still running strong. Let us remember we are all together on the road of life and need to support each other, help each other, and
celebrate each other's beauty inside and out.
So, if you see me on the street parked there, banging on the shift lever, just know I need a couple of minutes to get things going again.