The On and Off Ramps of Life
For a season, or for the duration, we never journey alone
This morning, I stood on the driveway waving as my wife, my mother-in-law, and my daughter departed for college move-in day.
It was both a sad and rewarding moment all at the same time.
All the emotions leading up to this final farewell got me thinking about all the on and off ramps in life.
It’s been a heavy week, especially for our daughter. She has spent the last few days telling her friends and family goodbye. Every day brought a new exit, as friends slowly began departing home, and headed out to begin their own journeys.
Short of perhaps your own departure to a new place or the onset of a new journey, there likely is no other time in life when so many close friends leave you as that which occurs at the end of the summer of one’s senior year of high school.
Soon, as early as this afternoon, a bunch of hellos will replace all of those goodbyes, but it doesn’t make them any easier. It’s heavy. And the reality, whether she realizes it or not, is that many of those goodbyes will be final.
Sure, she may stay in touch on Facebook or Snapchat or whatever the next tool of connection may be, but her time sharing the road with many of those friends has come to an end.
They’ve each taken their exit from their common path, and soon they will each be joined by new companions who will travel the next leg of her journey with them.
It has me thinking about all the seasons that have come and gone in my own life. How many people, whether a high school friend, a college buddy, a neighbor, or a coworker, came into my life for that season only to go a new direction when our season together concluded.
It’s not something I give energy to very often. If anything, I have often joked that I have no rearview mirror. I’m more focused on what sits before the windshield in front of me.
But that doesn’t mean those seasons don’t hold some value. Those seasons, those special people, brought richness, color, and value to the experience of living. I am grateful for that.
And I am even more grateful to those small few who have stayed with me on the journey for multiple seasons, and in a few cases, decades. Some of them took their own off-ramps along the way, but for whatever reason, we found ourselves reconnected later in life, and our journeys coincided with one another again.
Looking back over all those seasons, and thinking about those who still travel with me, I realize I could never have predicted how it would all turn out. Some who are still with me, or are with me again, I would never have anticipated. Others who I may have assumed would be with me for the duration took an unexpected exit, or broke down along the way.
At that moment, a few of those breakdowns and exits were pretty upsetting. They felt untimely at best and unfair at worst. More than one of them caused sadness, remorse, confusion, and heartache.
But I recognize now that their exits opened up capacity for new people on my journey, and all of them helped enrich and bring vibrancy to my travels in their own unique way. Even the ones who seemed to only muck up the truck while there were traveling with me in it.
I know also that many who travel with me today are only here for this season, and soon they too will take their own exits at a time and duration still unknown.
I wish that perspective for my daughter. I wish she could know now how many people come and go, and with that knowledge, she could just be present for the experience of knowing them.
I wish she could know that life will be unpredictable. Not only will the people come and go, but also that there will be unexpected detours. Sometimes the GPS (I like to think of that as the God-Positioning-System) will force you to take an alternative route. Sometimes you’ll be stuck in traffic. Sometimes, you may even feel lost.
And that’s all part of the journey. It’s all part of what is supposed to be.
It’s all part of what makes the journey beautiful.
I wish she could know all of this.
But, I am also excited that she has to figure it all out on her own.
In time, she’ll get to decide how fast and how far she travels. She’ll get to decide if she pulls over to let someone catch up, or whether she accelerates to keep from being left behind. She’ll choose whether she takes an unexpected exit to visit someone or someplace that’s off the beaten path, or whether she only travels the big highways.
I’m also excited that we get to follow behind. Instead of being at the wheel of her journey, we now get to hang back a bit knowing we’ll see her at the next rest stop.
Someday, we will have to say goodbye, but for now, it will just be a see-you-laters.
We are in for the duration of this journey, and I cannot wait to see what the front windshield reveals.