A
week ago the Oklahoma City area was getting hit, again, but severe weather and
tornadoes. Most anything that hits
Oklahoma goes through here as well. And
as I left Bolivar to head to work in Stockton, Cedar County became warned. Around here ‘warned’ only means one thing,
tornado warning. Severe Storm warnings
don’t hold near the weight as the big T does.
I didn’t really have any choices; I had to go to Stockton. And it’s not like that storm wouldn’t be in
Bolivar soon enough anyway. As I was
driving I watched the sky, not for fear of a tornado dropping on my head out of
now where ala ‘Twister’, but because it was so interesting. On either side of storm the sky was dark and
murky like you expect a storm to look like.
However, in the middle the sky was a robin’s egg blue. Oddly enough, that is where the storm was, right
over Stockton. I hit the wind before I
hit the wall. Once I reached the storm
edge it was as if I was driving into a wall of wind and rain, cutting my speed
literally in half. Did I have a choice
about going that night? I guess that
depends on who you ask. Working that
night was my responsibility. I know that
the individual I was replacing at work believed it was my responsibility too,
and was grateful to get to go home. But,
of course, that got me thinking.
How
often do we drive ourselves into the storm when we don’t have to? And I don’t mean a weather storm. How often do we put ourselves into situations
that blow up around us or spin out of control?
How often do we choose to be in those situations as opposed to not
having a choice? I don’t mean the drama
queens of the world who are the ones that seem to always be the center of the
storm. Not every choice puts us into the
storm, and not every storm is by choice.
They vary for simple rain storms to severe weather to the big T. As I look back over the multitude of storms I’ve
driven into throughout my life I see storms that I knew were brewing and I
chose to go into them anyway. Convincing
myself it was just some rain, nothing major.
While in reality, they were major enough to change life gears for a
while. I remember storms that seemed to
come out of now where, unexpected, unforecast.
They too changed the course of my life.
Some storms clear the skies and create a positive after impact, but most
don’t. I know for a fact I would not be
sitting here right now, in the life I have today had it not been for the storms
I drove into. And while so many times I
wish I could change things I have or have not done I don’t know that I would. And sometimes I wonder if it would have made
a difference at all.
We end
up where we are in life for a reason. Our
lives are based on our choices, the choices of others, and to some degree the
storms we weather. I firmly believe that
while not everything is set, some things are meant to happen. And if we avoid it once it will eventually
catch up to us. Once I drove into the storm
last week the sky changed, my perception of my environment changed, and of
course my mind was working overtime. Everything
was dark, murky gray. There were no dark
storm clouds or robin’s egg blue sky. There
was gray, rain slashed gray. And slowly
but surely I made it to my destination once the warning was over and the rain
had slacked off. I drove into the storm
but the heart of the storm missed me. We
don’t always get so lucky. And
sometimes, when the timing falls perfectly, we miss the storm all together.
