There’s a hurricane coming to Virginia and it’s not coming quietly. This afternoon I tried to out-bike nature in an attempt to squeeze in a quick bike ride before the weekend of torrential storms arrived, and to my dismay, nature won.
Ten miles away from home, which is a good thirty minutes on my Barbie bike, I got tossed around by wind and rain like I weighed nothing. As it began to rain sideways, I focused on dodging the fallen tree limbs scattered across the road, my wheels skidding every now and then in slick puddles. I felt like a kid riding a roller coaster that they weren’t supposed to ride. The wind knocked me back and forth as I peddled hard to get back to safety, smiling and laughing to myself for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Loud crackles of thunder and relentless bolts of lightning nagged at me to remind me that this wasn’t all fun and games and that I did need to get home as quickly as possible.
We will all find ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time at some point in our daily journey; how we handle these unplanned moments are formative to our relationship with life. There was a moment today that I should have turned around when I saw the sky getting dark, but I kept going and found myself at the point of no return when the real storm came. Questioning yourself, playing the “should have” game, and wishing that you taken a different route will never do you any good. Sometimes we have to just put our head down and push forward until we can complete what we have started.
It was a triumphant moment when I finally made it back to my driveway, where I stood smiling in the pouring rain at the curious onlooking of my neighbors. Sometimes we all need a little unexpected fun in the rain to reawaken the carefree spirit inside of us. Enjoy Hurricane Irene, have a run in the rain, and wave to your neighbors as you go.