Learned Lesson Number Fifteen: Be Careful Where You Hang Your Hopes

Hope is a precious thing. Without it we cannot endure. Anything. When we learn how to properly access it, we can endure. Anything. So consider very carefully where you look for hope. And where you choose to put it, once you have found it.

When I was 9 years old, I wanted a horse. Really badly. I fervently hoped I would get a horse for Christmas. It was pretty much all I thought about. It was an impossibility. We lived in the suburbs, in a rental, with a tiny back yard. In spite of my mother’s very rational explanations of why I could not have a horse, I still hoped. In my logical little 9-year-old mind, she was just trying to throw me off with her reasoning. Horses eat grass. We had grass. A horse needs a fence. Got one of those, too. I could take care of the horse, I had read all the books, knew what they ate, how to groom them, and certainly how to love them. And besides, I had been praying for a horse. God would not let me down.

I did not get a horse. I still do not have a horse. My hopes were dashed, and have been many more times since then, and in much harsher ways. Yet I still believe in hope. And I still believe in God.

This is how the dictionary defines hope: “ The feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.” I kind of like this definition because it includes an “or”. So often we feel like our hopes have been destroyed because we did not get what we wanted. It is much easier to hang onto hope after not getting what we want when we can believe that the outcome might still be in our best interest. Even if we don’t see or feel that right away, due to our disappointment.

I also found that “expectation” was listed as a synonym for “hope”. I am not sure that I completely agree with this assessment. I think that expectations are closed and hope is open. Expectations are “It needs to be this, and it will be this”, while hope is more “I want it to be this, but if it isn’t, then something better will come”. I think that expectations are Earthly, and hope is Heavenly. This is where God comes in.

Recently while struggling with a rather painful loss of hope, (familiar territory for me the past few years) I looked up “Hope” in the topical guide of my scriptures. I found many inspiring references, but this is the one that linked to my soul, and made me sob just a little:

Romans 8:24-25 “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”

This connected with me on a visceral level, because I was in a place of desperately wanting to see evidence of what I was hoping for, and it was not coming. I had prayed for an answer and was led to this scripture. I realized that I was hanging my hopes in the wrong places. I was attaching them to humans and events. Events change, and humans are weak and imperfect, and cannot be trusted with my hopes. I likewise cannot be trusted with the hopes of others. No matter how much I love and trust them. No matter how much I want them to love and trust me.

Real hope, while often delivered via other humans, comes from God, and God alone. He is unchanging and immoveable. He is the only one who can see what “we see not”, and deliver it. And He does it on His timetable, not ours. To truly access real hope, we have to get our lives aligned with God so that we can see the signs He sends to give us hope. If we are aligned with Him, the signs appear where we are looking. I have tested this, and I know it to be true. I hope for many things in my life that are not yet seen. I still hope for a horse. And for much bigger things than that. So I keep the channels open. I look for the signs. I roll with the disappointments in my life, and I forgive the weakness in myself and other humans. My hopes are hanging in a solid and immoveable place. I work daily at keeping them bright, while anxiously awaiting the time when I will be shown what I hope for, but do not yet see.

Learned Lesson Number Fourteen: Be Fiercely Yourself

Who among us really knows who we are? Even when looking in a mirror, what we see is not exactly what others see. The mirror-image is a slightly altered one from the actual image. And then that whole complicated subject of perception comes into play. Two people can view the same person, thing, or situation, and give completely different descriptions, when both are seeing supposedly the very same visual. It’s enough to make your head spin. I recently turned 50, and since I am shooting for the century mark, this means I am only halfway through this earthly journey, and the older I get, the more I realize how little I actually know. Even about myself. Having said this, I also am reasonably certain about the things that I DO know. Thus this “Blog’o’Stuff” that I think I know for sure.

So. Here is what I know about who I am. I believe that God created me with certain basic elements that make up my soul in its original, barest form. In my mind, this original form of Peg is a little girl who looks something like Pippi Longstocking. She is unique and I love her. She is the last version of myself that I remember in her purest form. Before the floods and fires of life began to alter my view. She wears braids and has a pet monkey and keeps a horse in her kitchen, and nobody tells her what to do. She is a grand storyteller, and she does not suffer condescension or those who would be cruel to children. She has superhuman strength, and she is fiercely herself.

This original child is the part of ourselves that God has charged us with protecting and preserving as we bounce through this mortal existence. Each of us is subject to the buffetings of negative circumstances and difficult people. These things alter us, sometimes harshly. It can be scary and lonely. But we are given people who recognize us, along the way. These are our soul mates, and they come in many forms. We need to value and keep them close. They are the ones who love us most and know us best; who retain the ability to see only that original soul when they look at us. I am fortunate to have a number of these people in my life. The ones who have always seen me, no matter how deeply hidden I was.

When I was 20 years old and just getting to know the man I would marry, I found myself wanting him so much that I kept mostly silent. Letting him do the talking, subconsciously hiding the parts of myself that I feared he would not like. Hiding Pippi, who I loved the most. Making her disappear. I cannot blame him for this, I chose to suppress myself, and I must be accountable for that. But the consequences of that choice have been far-reaching and painful. I remember going out for a burger with one of my aforementioned “soul mates” while trying to decide whether to get married. He told me I had changed, and that I even “blinked my eyes differently.” I asked if this was good or bad, and he said, “Just different. Not like you”.

In the movie “Runaway Bride”, a woman becomes somewhat infamous for continually bolting from the altar, and a reporter attempts to discover why this is. He interviews each of the jilted grooms, and asks them all “how does she like her eggs?” Every man’s answer is different, all followed by “She likes them just like I like them.” Ultimately this woman needed to figure out how she really liked her eggs. I should have been bold about how I liked my eggs. It might have saved me a lot of grief. Once you are married and living with a person, it is pretty much impossible to hide your real self. And once the guard came down, my fears that he would not much care for the uncensored, raw version of me were realized. I tried for 23 years to correct this. Decided to start truly being myself and hoping I would grow on him. But alas, he was not a fan of Pippi.

I am not interested in recounting the sad tale of divorce yet again, nor am I interested in placing blame. Part of learning who I am is taking responsibility for my part in how it all played out. I struggle far more with the forgiving of myself than with the forgiving of him. And as far as I think I have come in recent years, there is still a big part of me that is terrified of being me. It is risky to be fiercely oneself, but the alternative is far worse. Trust me.

In finally letting people see who I really am, I risk rejection, and recently I have felt some of that. It is not fun. But in the holding back of my raw self, I assure rejection. Maybe not right away, but eventually. It is far better to put yourself out there and know you have been honest. As the Good Doctor Geisel says, “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”

A wise bit of advice my mother used to offer me in the rapids of my marriage was to “pray to see him through the Lord’s eyes”, and that always helped. It is a practice I still use, any time I struggle with anyone. If I can see them as I think God sees them, then there is no judgment on my part. It is while trying to see myself through that lens that I often lose my footing, and sometimes I stumble. In fact, lately it has felt like I am face-planting into the pavement on a regular basis. My view of myself is still somewhat skewed, and those pavement-bonding moments do not help with that. But my approach is to actively strengthen my personal relationship with God, in order to better see myself through His eyes. It is a tedious process, but I think it is working. When I look in the mirror, I am recognizing at least an outline of myself again. Because the way that God sees us all is as His children.

One of my assignments while in post-divorce therapy was to write a letter to my childhood self. It was an excruciating task, because I could not find her. At that point, even superhuman strength could not help poor Pippi dig out from under what I had piled on top of her. Finally getting the dirt to loosen has taken coming to Utah and moving into a bedroom in my parents’ house. It has taken getting sick and letting them take care of me. And it has taken going back to the beginning. To elementary school. Where, in my job as a teacher’s aide, I have been blessed with a group of vivacious 4^th-graders who somehow recognize me.

They “high-five” me in the halls and they call me “Pegster” and “Pegasus”. These were my nicknames when I was their age. They figured this out without my having told them. Lately they have taken to pounding on the desks or the lunch tables and singing “We Will Rock You” when they see me coming. I did not instigate this, and while I find it amusing and somewhat gratifying, I am sure the teachers do not. It’s a good thing school is almost out. But I will miss those kids who recognized Pippi in me, enough to help me dig her out. I need her. She is my ticket Home.

The Savior Himself said, “Unless ye become as a little child, ye can in nowise enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” So if you have lost touch with who you really are, find a way to go back to the 4^th grade. Hang out with some 9-year-olds for a while. Find a way to get back there and retrieve your childhood self. Then defend that kid. Fiercely.

Learned Lesson Number Thirteen: Get Schooled

I started college in 1979. Oldest of nine children, I went off to Brigham Young University with high hopes, in clothes I had made for myself and with money saved from three summer jobs. The eight kids still at home meant my folks could not help much financially. I worked in the college bookstore, and majored in art. This was a poorly-considered choice, but it took me a year to figure that out. Art was a highly-competitive major, and I was just not that good at it. I chose BYU in the hopes of getting into their song-and-dance group, “The Young Ambassadors”, and when I was not successful at this, I decided to return to Arizona for the summer and regroup.

I secured a full-time custodial job at Arizona State University. As an employee, I could take classes for next to nothing, so stayed at ASU. I took French and Weightlifting. I stayed up too late and could not choose a major. I leaned toward Photo-journalism, although music was my first love. After a year at ASU, I decided the 4pm to midnight custodial job was interfering with my social life, so I quit and enrolled in Mesa Community College. Working my way backwards, high school was sure to be my next stop. Instead, I met a drummer. He had a band. I wanted to be in it, and I wanted him. Going back to high school might have been a better idea. But I was sold. Quit school, sang in bars and hotel lounges for a year, and married my drummer. Six kids and twenty-three years of marriage boot camp later, I graduated from the School of Dwindling Self-Esteem and found myself in a world where that particular education held no earning power. I knew I needed to go back to Real College. I had enrolled in a couple of classes at MCC a year or two before divorce, but that was quickly halted. I was “using too much gas” and “neglecting my duties at home” in this silly pursuit.

While working out the post-divorce financial arrangement, I quickly learned how fast $300 an hour in legal fees adds up, so naively settled for only four years of alimony, in spite of the guideline for a marriage as long as ours being three times higher. Divorce Math 101. I knew my soon-to-be ex would fight me on the higher numbers, and I figured I had a year of school under my belt, so I would be done in three, giving me a full year to secure a job, and then I would no longer be reliant upon a man who hated me for my support. It seemed logical, and it speeded up the process considerably, while eliminating legal costs.

I had no idea that I would have to withdraw from two semesters in a row because I could not keep my youngest son in school. Or that my 15-year-old daughter would require major spinal surgery, and that her father would use this surgery to try and take possession of both her and her younger brother. After two years of not sleeping at night because I dreaded the morning, which usually greeted me with a kicking, screaming, anxiety-ridden child who had to be stuffed into the car by his brothers and then relegated to the Principal’s office where he would kick the walls all day, I finally opted for an online K12 education for him.

I found some irony in the fact that twice I enrolled in Psychology 101, and twice I had to withdraw from that class to deal with the real-world psychological issues taking place in my own home. And this was upper-division stuff. But I got no college credit for it. What I had learned in two decades of raising children was only marketable in the form of child care, so I took a nanny job for a year, working for a very wealthy blended family. This was an education in social class and morals, and did not end well. Again, no college credit.

After four years of trial and error, I have become most creative in the balancing of my real-world education with my academic education, both of which are ongoing. As I have learned to navigate the world of Financial Aid and online possibilities, and also with the help of family and friends, I am finally within a year of securing that elusive Degree. If asked to sum up what I have learned thus far, my answer would have to be that I have learned that no one is ever fully educated. The lessons will continue to come long after the cap and gown have made their walk.

Learned Lesson Number Twelve: Home Is Not Four Walls

Last year I lost a house, for the fifth time in as many years. The first of these was the house my children mourned losing, the one their father had provided. Beautiful and large, it was the center of where their friends and their lives revolved. I think they mourned the loss of that home at least as much as the departure of their father, who, after choosing his new wife, moved to another house in another state, with another’s children. So nothing felt more urgent to me than providing a real home for my children, whom he had left behind. My resolve and my faith in my ability to achieve this, as their mother, was unwavering. It was my reason for being; finding a home base, where my children would feel safe. I knew they needed to not feel like they were losing everything. And thus the journey toward "home" began.

Year One: a rental, just outside the orbit of familiar people and places, but the only place I could get. Displaced Homemaker, no marketable skills. WalMart job, shattered credit rating. The house was too small. My boys lived in the garage, and would not go to church or school. Faith being central to my survival, I feared my children would lose whatever level of religious faith they had acquired up to that point, so Year Two brought a lease-to-own, closer to their schools and our church. A Good Mother knows the value of the influence of church-going friends and the comfort of being at familiar schools. One year later, I lost the down-payment when I was unable to qualify to purchase the house. Two of my sons had dropped out of high school, and none were attending church. My youngest son had anger and anxiety issues that forced me to withdraw him from public school, and my own educational plans were put on hold. Yet I pressed on in my quest.

Year Three: nanny job with rental house, slightly rural area. More money, but situation with my children deteriorating further, partly due to their father’s unsuccessful attempt to spirit them away. Year Four, nanny job ends, finding us back in our old neighborhood, in a far-too-tiny rental. No credit check required. One side effect of moving a large family out of a large house into increasingly smaller houses is that the amount of stuff that follows, and therefore needs to be managed, seems increasingly larger. By this fourth and smallest house, I felt like a hoarder with all the boxes of STUFF stacked around me. It was memories mixed with junk, and it drained the life out of us all, but I did not have the emotional fortitude to go through it and decide what did and did not matter. Let alone the resolve to throw those things out.

The fifth and final house in this progression would surely be the home that saved my children. Yet another lease-to-own; down-payment forfeited when the deal went south. It turns out, those who require no credit check are often shady themselves, and this was proven to me painfully when I realized how completely I had been ripped off. Alimony running out, most of my children having moved out, and a houseful of stuff which I could not afford to maintain. Two years shy of completing my college degree, and most painful of all, I had failed to make my children a home. They were finding homes of their own. For me, this was Rock Bottom. No money, no job, no home, and no idea why I had failed so miserably. As a mother, as a wife, as a woman. I was in total despair.

I put the stuff in storage, dragged my exhausted self and my youngest son to Utah, and moved into my parents’ home to take refuge. This is where the healing and the epiphany began. The pressure of needing to provide was lifted. My parents made me feel at home. When I returned to Arizona to visit my children, they made me feel at home. I started to see that they still loved me. Unconditionally. They appreciated my efforts to make them a home, and they told me so. I discovered that home is not a location. Once I had let go of the idea that it was the four walls that mattered, I discovered home in many places. In the car, driving cross-country with my youngest son; sleeping on the couch where my three oldest sons, all of whom are gainfully employed and doing just fine, share a home; at my married daughter’s apartment, holding my grandbabies; at church, at a concert, a movie, or enjoying a meal with people that I love. Home is not a structure made of brick and mortar. Home is something you carry with you, that you offer to others. Home is who you’re with, wherever you are, so long as it is built on a foundation of love.

Learned Lesson Number Eleven: Easter is Not About Chocolate

Atonement

I hurt, I fall, land on my knees,

He knows my pain, He feels, He sees.

Each slight, dismissal, injury

Was carried in Gethsemane.

He bled, atoned, for all of those

Who tried and scourged Him, brought Him low.

The bitter gall, the crown of thorns,

Through the streets, the cross was borne.

When, in despair, I plead with Him

To take from me the weight of sin,

The ache of loss, the grief undone,

He took it all, the battle’s won.

I smile through tears, healed by degrees.

Get on my feet, from off my knees

And do the work He gave to me,

That I may go, renewed, to be

With Him for all Eternity.

Learned Lesson Number Ten: Kindness is Never Foolishness

When I was in college the first time, some 30-plus years ago, I read a story in my Freshman English class at BYU that had a profound effect upon my life. It was written by Isaac Bashevis Singer, and is entitled “Gimpel the Fool”. Gimpel was an orphan who was simple and without guile. Because of his nature, he was a target his entire life. Everyone in the village where he lived engaged in dispensing ridicule and lies that were directed at Gimpel, for the sake of nothing more than their own entertainment. In spite of this, Gimpel chose to never get angry or take revenge upon anyone, even though he was large in stature and could have taken most of them out at any time. Even though he usually did know when they were lying to him. Instead he chose to perpetually extend the benefit of the doubt to all who would mess with him, because he did not want to take the chance that his disbelief or his vengefulness might hurt another. “What was I to do?” said he, “I believed them, and I hope at least that did them some good.” Gimpel chose to take the advice of his rabbi, which was, "It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself."

The story of Gimpel was not a happy one. He was horribly taken advantage of throughout his life, choosing always to see and embrace the good in those who treated him most miserably. When he came to the end of his days, he had no regrets, because he had never dished evil to a living soul. He was prepared and without fear, saying, “When the time comes I will go joyfully. Whatever may be there, it will be real, without complication, without ridicule, without deception. God be praised: there even Gimpel cannot be deceived.”

I have been gently accused, from time to time in my life, of being a “doormat”, of not standing up for myself when I was being taken advantage of. And without dwelling upon parts of my life that I am now mostly free of, sometimes they were right. I hate conflict, and would always rather take the brunt of any unkindness than ever dish it out myself. Not that I haven’t occasionally engaged in a few biting and cynical dialogues in my head when I felt attacked. But I can never bring myself to actually carry them out. The act of making anyone feel even slightly bad about anything, even (maybe especially) if they deserve it, is just not in my repertoire. I blame my mother for this. She does not have a mean cell in her body. When I was a small child, growing up in the 1960’s, she used to often quote a line from the movie “Bambi”, spoken by a repentant little bunny called Thumper, whose mother had taught it to him… “If ya can’t say somethin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.” She must have said this to us a lot, because it is so deeply ingrained in my memory. My mother lives by these words. I can honestly not remember a single time in my entire life that I have ever heard her speak an unkind word about anyone. And I have seen her deal kindly with those who deserved otherwise. This is what I aspire to.

I have six children, and I spend a whole lot of time beating myself up over the many ways I believe I have failed them over the years. None of us is perfect when it comes to parenting. But I believe that they have picked up this one concept along the way somehow, because they are mostly kind to each other. (Sometimes in their own unique, biting, and cynical way!) But they take care of each other, and I find that gratifying. I tell them repeatedly (and try to show them as well) that there is nothing in life that matters more than how they treat others. NOTHING. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Without exception. There is a reason that particular Rule is called the Golden one.

I saw a movie once, can’t remember what it was called, but it was about a guy who had treated people horribly his entire life, then had a near-death experience, from which he returned with the unwelcome ability to feel exactly what he had made other people feel. As time went by, he discovered that his own life was far less painful if he treated the people around him with kindness. Well, DUH! My own personal theory about Judgment Day, and Heaven versus Hell in the life after this one, is that a similar rule will apply. That the definition of both Heaven and Hell is the same; You will simply feel what you have caused others to feel. The Savior Himself has put no small emphasis on this particular concept. “Love one another, as I have loved you.” Pretty basic. As it says on the wall in my mother’s house, “Nice Matters”. Thumper and I have wise mothers. And Gimpel was no fool. When in doubt, always err on the side of kindness. What’s the worst that could happen?

Learned Lesson Number Nine: Learn to Enjoy the Long Drive

Last week I was trying to decide if a short trip to Arizona would be worth the long drive. I had some days off work, I missed my kids, and there were some friends’ events that I wanted to attend. But gas is high, and money is low, and it meant two all-nighters driving for a three-day stay. I found myself weighing the value against the cost. I chose to go, even though on the surface, the cost seemed to be nosing ahead of the value. I just had this feeling that getting there was important. So I got in the car and started driving.

I drive a lot. A LOT. This practice started early for me. I was in a really big hurry to get my drivers’ license, so the minute I turned 16, I was there. With bells on, whatever that means. Bells, but not shoes. That’s right, I was so excited that I couldn’t even keep my shoes on. Although the examiner was unaware of it, I took my test in my bare feet. I felt like I had more control with nothing between my skin and the gas pedal, so I slipped off my sandals and kicked them under the seat. I still often drive this way. (Don’t tell anyone. I am not sure it’s legal.)

I took my drivers’ test in downtown Phoenix in the spring of 1977, in a gigantic green beat-up Dodge van that seated something like 16 people. Well, maybe 12. It was big. Parallel parking was out of the question. Which is why I went to Phoenix, instead of Tempe, where I lived. No parallel parking required. Since I was the oldest of 9 children and therefore the first to acquire a license, my mother took full advantage of my constant desire to get behind the wheel, and she used me to shuttle kids from place to place wherever possible. I of course worked these jaunts into detours to pick up my friends and cruise around places like Main Street in Mesa, and the campus of Arizona State University, where many “foxy” (hey, it was the 70’s..) college boys could be found. It did not take long before my identity was somewhat entwined with that of the big ugly green van.

In my early 20’s, I found myself travelling in a white Ford Econoline cargo van, which did not have power steering or back windows, and belonged to my future husband, who was, at the time, a dark and brooding temptation to me. He was a drummer and I was the Chick Singer. We had a road band, and I was certain we were on the path to all of our musical dreams coming true. We covered a vast portion of the country over the course of a year or so, playing in hotel lounges and bars in places like Roswell, New Mexico, Lawton, Oklahoma, and yes, even Nashville, Tennessee. Play for a week or two, drive for a day or two. Talking, listening to music, dreaming of the future by the full moon. As long as we were driving, I was enveloped in the illusion that I was actually going somewhere. Often the destination was disappointing, but the next drive always gave me renewed hope.

After we were married, we moved often, with several of these moves being cross-country ones, as my husband followed contract jobs from place to place, and we followed him. The vehicles shifted, from cargo van, to mini-Blazer, to mini-van(s), to gas-guzzling Suburban. Moving was exciting when the kids were little, before it meant uprooting them from their friends and the things that they knew. The big moves were to places like Seattle, Detroit, Albuquerque, St. Louis, and Dallas. There were many smaller moves about the Phoenix area, and many trips between family in Utah and New Mexico. We moved at least once every single time that I was pregnant, (3 times with kid number 5) and some of those moves I made on my own. I really didn’t mind, because although the job was hard without him, it was also easier without him. Once I had all of my children contained in their seatbelts and carseats, I felt, at least briefly, that I had some control over my life. I could choose the music, escape into my mind, (where there was far less stress than in my real life) keep the wheels between the lines, and just GO. Forward motion. All was well. For 8 hours, or 12 hours, or 3 or 4 days. My life between the long drives was considerably more difficult.

In the 5 years since I got divorced, the long drives have been even more frequent, and approaching the destination has been increasingly fraught with varying levels of drama and stress, as I have shuttled my kids between Arizona and Utah to visit their father. He remarried and relocated very quickly, and the transition has not been a smooth one, particularly for my youngest son, who is the only one of my 6 kids who still lives with me. But a surprising thing has happened, along this bumpy road; I have really internalized the concept of embracing the journey. Even (perhaps especially) when I know there will be ugliness and difficulty at the end of the road.

My 12-year-old son, who used to be filled with anxiety and anger every time we had to make the drive from the desert to the mountains, now often turns off the music because he just wants to talk. We solve all the problems of the Universe, we hash out movie script ideas, we discuss religion and relationships, and forgiveness and possibility. He reads me song lyrics he has written. We eat Cheetos and drink YooHoo. He regales me with the plot of every episode of South Park, in spite of my protests. He wants to know what life was like for me in the 70’s. He asks me to sing “Blue Moon” for him, and then tells me, in all sincerity, as we drive in the moonlight with the sunroof open, that it is the most amazing thing he has ever heard. This from a kid who knows every word to every song that “Linkin Park” has ever recorded. (Which we also listen to, with the volume up.) We are planning a cross-country road trip for the summer of 2012, to see all the coolest landmarks. You know, just in case. Perhaps we will make our own documentary about that, and enter it in a film festival. My life on the road is a rich one, where all things are possible.

Since we have been staying in Utah for the year, the place we used to live has become the place we visit, (and vice versa) and the emotions and the homesickness that go with that have been challenging for us both. But the long drives that tie these two places together have often been where we gain our strength and perspective. When you feel like your life is not going where you want it to go, it can be refreshing to throw it in a car and drive it in a direction of your choosing for awhile. You at least have the illusion that you are going somewhere, and maybe you can figure some things out on the way about where you really are.

My long drive to Arizona and back last weekend was filled with questions and answers, respectively. The short stay in between was fulfilling and clarifying, in ways I did not expect. It was also fun. Never underestimate the value of fun. And although the cost was fairly close to what I had calculated, the value continues to increase even after my return. I don’t think this would be true if I had taken an hour and a half flight instead of making the long drive. There is no shortcut to embracing the journey. So put the key in the ignition, roll down the windows and crank up the music, put your bare foot on the gas pedal, and move forward. And don’t forget to buckle up.