So the guy beside me on the plane is having a bad day. When I strolled up to Gate 76 he was asleep with his mouth wide open surrounded by the other people waiting to get on Delta fight 1176. They were all staring at him. When I say his mouth was open, it was really open. It was hard not to notice. Like a train wreck.
He is Asian, wearing no tie, has leaned his chair back with his feet up (brown untied shoes with a grey suit), his fingers are laced across his belly and his mouth is open.
Wide open!
The plane could fly inside.
And his glasses are crooked.
This isn’t the only reason that I know he’s having a bad day. When we took our seats he was on his I-phone, as was everyone else around us, and I could see what he was writing to whoever he was writing to.
“It is not a happy day,” I saw then I tried to look away because I was invading his privacy but then it was like a Soap Opera and I was hooked. I had to know more.
Then the “Flight Attendants” were telling us how to fasten a seat belt and if anybody is caught in the bathroom “dismantling, disabling or destroying a smoke detector” then all of hell is going to break loose.
When I looked back, his I-phone was put away, he’s asleep and his mouth is wide open. He has five fillings. Not the gold fillings. The other kind.
I think that he also had Spinach Salad for lunch.
Either that or he is returning from working on the Nuclear Power plants in Japan though I’m pretty sure it was Spinach Salad.
So this has got me to thinking.
I remember one time I was driving along Bay Street in Downtown Savannah. It’s a beautiful street aside from the thousands of trucks that use it every day for some inexplicable reason other than people who were elected to public office spend all day long making decisions that have inexplicable reasons!
Anyway, I’m driving down Bay and I pass this other car. It was red. And there was this girl driving it and she had long dirty blond hair. Freckles dotted her nose and cheeks. And tears were streaming from down her face which was twisted in agony. And I got all of this in less than ten seconds … from the time it takes to stop a car and look up and see something and then the light changes and then the world changes.
This occurred a long, long time ago. But I can still see her now just as clearly as when I was heading in one direction and she was heading in another and we both paused for a few seconds.
Whenever I drive down Bay Street these days and am stopped by one of the traffic lights she flashes through my mind. What was the agony? She left her husband or he left her? The doctor gave her the bad news? Something horrible happened to the kids? The boss abused her? Maybe it was the period from hell! I don’t know.
But there is something beautiful about simply being who you are … where you are … and not allowing anyone or anything to hold you back from … YOU!
I believe that God gave us life … to be us! It’s such a rotten shame that we spend so much time and energy trying to be what other people want us to be … husbands, wives, children, bosses, friends, clergy and those stupid people who run television.
We literally give ourselves away. We sell our souls. We try to make ourselves into what others want us to be. And we die a little every day when we do this.
So I’ve been on this journey for the past year. A Sabbatical. I paused from life though at a stop light. I’d given everything that I had to give to others and they sure as hell took it all!
And for the past year it’s been my time! For me!
And I’ve clawed myself back to me. There are people who I care about but that is different from caring about what other people think. Or want me to be! The rest of my life is God’s gift to me. And I’ve found my friends. And love has reclaimed my soul after it had been stripped, abandoned and left with no concern whatsoever by others. It was a barren place. Now after this visit to Pittsburgh I’ve suddenly got lots of stuff to do.
The Sabbatical is over.
The rest of my life has begun.
But that girl, crying in her car as we both paused for just seconds, remains a vision of pain and beauty to me all of these years later.
Unlike the guy next to me with his mouth wide open. Though I do hope his day gets better.
Like mine have!
And like I pray that yours do.
