This has not been the best of weeks. While my son loves his new Kindergarten, he is also feeling the pains of growing up. With a June birthday, he is no longer the biggest kid in the class and is for the first time experiencing the cruelty that kids can display. It has broken my heart to see him come to terms with the fact that sometimes kids say mean things, or won’t want to play with him. It has stretched my imagination beyond belief to help him plan strategies for these situations. I have worked extra hard to keep his confidence and belief in himself strong despite the situation.
At the same time, I have been struggling internally this week with my own “mean thoughts.” People I trusted have let me down, and I am finding it extremely difficult to forget and forgive. It’s hard for me to admit, but I am shunning the very actions I am counseling my son to take with his classmates. And I can see my own confidence and self-belief suffer each day as a result.
When I was in Sixth Grade, my Camp Fire Girl troupe went to Santa’s Village on a field trip. One low admission price admitted us to paradise—the ability to ride any ride in the place as often as we wished. Of course, my girlfriends and I ran directly to the roller coaster. After all, we were mature sixth graders; those baby rides like the Snow-Balls didn’t cut it for us. We wanted the adventure of twists, turns, and stomach dropping hills! Screaming, our hands in the air and the wind in our ears, we felt like wild explorers facing the incredibly exciting unknown. When the ride was over, we’d leap out of the ride, run around to the end of the line, and wait our turn to try again. Once was definitely not enough!
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve lost the desire to ride the roller coasters. After all, life is a roller coaster, and you don’t even pay admission. Things go up, down, twist, turn, and change directions suddenly. Sometimes, the ride feels exhilarating. At other times, it makes us sick. But one thing’s for sure. Just like the roller coaster ride, whether we love it or hate it once we get on we are pretty much stuck for the duration of the ride.
But, there are some specific differences between life and a roller coaster. For one thing, when the roller coaster ride ends, we get off and move on. If we didn’t like it, we can find something else, like the Snow-Ball ride, that’s more our speed. With life, however, it’s a bit more final. At the end of our ride we’d better be able to look back and say that it went well. Maybe we didn’t like every twist or turn or hill we encountered, but all in all we hope it was a good ride.
I actually discovered the most important difference that day long ago in Santa’s Village. After a couple hours of riding the roller coaster, jumping out, and running to the back of the line to do it again my friends and I found that the ride wasn’t really that great after all. We learned every turn, every twist, and every drop so well that it wasn’t an adventure anymore. By taking out the “fear factor,” the ride was downright boring!
Okay, life is hard sometimes. Things go wrong. People let us down, and we will struggle to help our family cope with hard issues. But we can take comfort in one thing. Life isn’t static. It will change. I see it changing slowing in my life already. My son is a great example for me. He came up with a solution to his problem. He told me he just picked a new friend to play with who said nice things to him. And, while I am still struggling with my “mean” thoughts, I did find the courage to tell the person who disappointed me how I felt. I’m not sure it will make a difference, but I do feel a little better for the confrontation.
Things go down, true, but they also come back up. Just like that roller coaster ride, life will throw us twists and turns that we don’t expect and find hard to deal with. But, we can stay on track by keeping our eyes directly ahead and enjoying the wind in our ears. And, if we ride life, I mean, really ride it: hands up and screaming the whole way, one thing’s sure. It will NEVER be boring.
