Staying Focused, Staying the Course

I'm shy of 40 by not too far.  I'm sure people can relate to this age.  This is the age where people start to ponder whether or not they did enough to have fun earlier in life.  This is when we reconcile to the fact that we're probably going to be working for the next 40 years.  This is when we start making plans to die with grace, hopefully squeezing out some time off between that and when we're done working.  This is when we're done making babies and in the thick of raising kids.  This is when we fondly remember the times we had with friends, lots of them, often, in the context of now when our best friends are our co-workers because we don't have time to go anywhere else.

To me, this is when I look at the ugly, old, beat up, OG BattleWagon parked across the street, and I see myself in it.  Its paint is faded, chipped, and under that, the body is starting to rust.  The turn signals don't work.  The radio doesn't work.  The dog house isn't connected.  The door latch knobs are sketchy at best.  The exhaust system is shot.  The front end needs to be rebuilt.  The gas gauge hasn't worked in 20 years.  The headliner is stapled up with a sheet over it.  The rear heat and AC don't work.  The windshield is bisected horizontally by a crack.  The dashboard vinyl is in about a thousand pieces.  The front tires are almost bald and don't match the back tires.

But... it starts every time I turn the key, and it gets me where I need to go.

I do that, too.

That's empowering.

I do get up and go.  Maybe it's time to get into a BattleWagon with the family.  Maybe it's time to explore, and travel, and do the fun stuff that I miss, and SHOW my kids, instead of just telling them about the wonders of the world.  It's a huge, incredible place.  We're missing it.  Everyone is scared, and maybe we should be.  But that shouldn't keep us from being humans, showing love, kindness, curiousity, and nobility that we've inherited from our ancestors, either through grace or sin.

Stay focused.  Stay the course.

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith."