What a ride!

Moving through our lives, we may encounter periods when we are pushed to great heights, even when we don’t realize it as it is happening. It is a quiet, ongoing power that brings us ever higher. At times we may think that we are not moving at all, however, if we would take a moment to look around us, we can see for miles around! Almost as if we are perched on the top of a mountain, touching the sky.

And no matter how hard we have worked to reach the top; independent from the fulfillment it brings ~ eventually that quiet power that got us there is going to give way to a turbulent force which seems to set everything in movement. And even when we decide to take a moment to see where we are standing with all of that, everything around us is moving so turbulently that it is hard to see what is going on exactly…

Where our path through life had been quiet, organized and filled with purpose, now we find ourselves on a roller coaster track that doesn’t seem to have an end. It just keep going and going. With so many unexpected twists and turns, moving up or down without warning; it truly sets our lives upside down! And while we may like visiting a theme park in order to enjoy the roller coaster rides, when our entire life becomes a roller coaster we may find ourselves more in a kind of ‘survival mode’, rather than experiencing the joyful ecstasy brought on by the adrenaline rush of the roller coaster ride in the park…

After all, when it is happening ‘in real life’, so much more is at stake!
And let’s face it, when we get tired of the theme park we can leave and go home while looking back on a fun-filled day. But when it is happening to life itself, the only thing we can do is to ride it out.
The best we can hope for is that we start to anticipate the twists and turns as they come up, and move with them rather than feeling like a rag doll without any control over itself.
Perhaps we gain most from it keeping our eyes wide open, so we can enjoy the peaks and may see what the valleys are all about; while holding on for dear life.

Yet when this roller coaster of our lives finally runs out, one would hope that we could take a deep breath and look back at it not recounting how terrible it was, or how we totally didn’t have any control, or even how getting into it wasn’t our fault (Hmmmm…), but rather by letting go a scream of excitement (and relief), and saying ‘What a ride!!”
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