The other day I drove out of town a little ways to be with my bff for her birthday. Along the 75-mile journey, my car's odometer rolled over to 100,000 miles. I had been anticipating this event for several months, wondering about the most appropriate celebration. I wanted to make it an event, make it exciting. This would be the first time any car of mine lived that long, so it deserved a celebration. Or, so I thought. In the end, it was just me and my car on a traffic-congested highway. And a camera. Yes, I took pictures of my car's odometer while the vehicle was moving down the road. (In a way, I was rather grateful for the traffic, because it meant I was going 15-30 mph instead of 70. Slightly less dangerous, obviously.)
My car is showing her age these days. She's got a minor exhaust leak that sounds exactly like my previous vehicle, has a few dents and scrapes (we won't mention how much bondo), the front bumper is hanging on somehow as all the top clips are broken, one door has been repainted a few times, and the tranny has to be gently coaxed into shifting. She's due for an oil change, a tire rotation, a brake line bleed and refill, a tune-up, and goodness knows how much more maintenance that I can't afford without a job. But she's mine. And I love driving her. (She can corner like nobody's business!)
Lately, as I look in the mirror, I realize that I too am starting to show my age. A few more gray hairs in front where everybody can see them, a few lines on my face that I never noticed before. Time is catching up with me.
I can't exactly say I'm happy about it. I guess everybody gets to this point, so I don't want to make a big deal out of it. But it seems like a big deal to me. I'm getting old. I don't even feel like my life has begun in many ways, but I'm getting old. I want to be married someday, but now I'm realizing that I'm no longer in the prime of life. I haven't found any sort of employment that I could rightfully call a career. I feel like I've just recently become comfortable with who I am....but now I realize I'm not as young as I thought I was. The temptation is to view what I have done (accomplished) so far as a failure. Like the movie "Failure to Launch." I'm not where I would like to be, and definitely not where I thought I would be. But, I don't want to automatically take the pessimist view here. I'm still a work in progress, right? As Brandon Heath sings, "There is hope for me yet, because God won't forget all the plans he's made for me. I have to wait and see."
Why is waiting so hard?
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