Stuck in a Rut?

Have you ever had a rut problem?  Well, lately I've been having one.  And it is about time I stopped being stuck in it.  Living in Utah in January during an inversion is pretty much like living in dry ice smoke.  It's bitter cold, hard to breathe, and lacking in sunshine. It's rather depressing actually.  I think it's part of my rut problem, but definitely not all of it.  I'm feeling sluggish after the holidays, crazy in the head, and a bit downhearted.  In fact, I didn't realize just how bad I was stuck in my preoccupied rut until this last Sunday when I discovered that I'd entirely forgotten something very necessary.  I'm embarrassed to say that I became so scatterbrained getting my family ready for church that I actually forgot to wear a bra.  And to make matters worse, for 6 full hours I had no clue that I was even without one.

Photo Courtesy of Christopher Sessums via Flickr

 

Now to some of you this might not seem like a very big deal, but I've never gone outside without a brassiere since I was in fifth grade. In fact, I absolutely shouldn't. I can't even explain to my own brain how it even could have happened unless I tell myself that DownEast must put a lot of spandex in their t-shirts.  Other than that, I think I've completely lost it and gone out of my mind.  I actually don't remember having such a tough time overcoming feeling so out of it not since I was nine years old.

The favorite activity for all of my friends when I was a kid was riding bikes.  Packs of kids would race through the neighborhood having a great old time.  But I couldn't participate in this joyous freedom because, much to my embarrassment, I didn't know how to ride a bike.  And by the age of nine this had become a huge, humiliating problem.  It meant that I got left out and left behind.  Well, one day I decided that I'd had enough.  I decided that I was tired of being left out and left behind.  I vowed I would teach myself to ride a bike no matter what the cost. And so I wheeled my hand-me-down purple bike out of the garage and down our steep driveway. 

I lived on a street that had deep gutters and I found that if I put my bike in the gutter, I could push along with my feet on each side of the gutter all the way around the block back to my house.  That is exactly what I did for several days until I found my balance.  After I learned to balance, I learned to put one foot on the pedal and push.  I wouldn't even pedal all the way around at first.  I would just push hard on the pedal and coast as far as I could.  It was not without misfortune, however.  There was one place on the block where the gutter was especially filled with silt and mud.  I got stuck there often and actually fell in once, covering my legs with the awful mucky stuff.  It was hard to keep going after that, but I wanted to learn so badly.  I wanted to be free and with my friends and out of that restrictive rut. 

Eventually I learned to pedal all the way around with both feet and I found that if I just kept pedaling, it was easier to keep going all the way around the block.  I still fell sometimes, and I fell hard.  Riding around in a gutter wasn't the safest place to ride a bike.  There was a lot of stuff in that gutter that got in the way.  Steering helped eventually.  Once I learned to put the pedaling and steering together, I could avoid most of the sand, the rocks, and other junk.  Not much time passed before I realized I was ready to leave the gutter.  One day I pedaled super hard right out of the rut and I found that I was completely free with the wind in my hair and a thrill in my heart. 

While I was contemplating this morning on freeing myself from this annoying and depressing January rut, I realized that I'd taught myself years ago some important truths when I learned how to ride a bike:

1. First, decide that you've had enough and you are going to get out of your rut, no matter what!  Focus your energy on gaining freedom from whatever is that is keeping you stuck.

2. Find your balance.  Sometimes it take a few trips around the block using the sides of the rut for needed support.  It's impossible to get your balance with just one try.  Make little changes.  If something isn't working, try something new.  Whatever you do, do something that will bring a lasting change to get you out of your hum drums.

3. Put your foot on one pedal and coast.  Go easy on yourself.  Things are not going to get better all at once.  It takes work and it takes time.  So if there are bumps and messes along the way, don't get discouraged.  It will all turn out alright eventually with just a little practice.

4. Don't stop pedaling.  Keep going.  Someday you'll look back on this and be glad that you didn't give up.  In the words of Martin Luther King, "If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward."

  

5. Get a grip and steer.  There will always be obstacles to leaving your rut.  Do your best to steer clear of them.  If you keep pedaling and keep steering, eventually you'll find your way out, no matter how deep.

6. Pedal hard when you're ready.  There are much better roads ahead!  As soon as you leave your rut there will be wind in your hair and a thrill in your heart and the knowledge that you can overcome anything!

"Inner Jogging"

November is one of my favorite months.  With Thanksgiving fast approaching, it gives me the added opportunity to remember what I am most grateful for, and today I am most grateful for laughter.  I think I'd go crazy if I couldn't laugh at myself and all those unexpected things that happen in life.  My best friend told me a joke recently that pretty much sums up how I feel  a lot of the time, "My memory is so bad that I could plan my own surprise party."  I think parenting does that to you and without laughter I don't know how I would survive it all.  Milton Berle once said, "Laughter is an instant vacation."  I think that is true.  And boy do I need those mini vacations!

My 15-year-old daughter said to me recently, " I'm here to help you develop character, Mom."   I have to laugh.  Her flippant, funny remark has often been true.  It's not unusual for me to find her doing something totally outrageous like one day when I came home to find her chugging Frank's Red Hot Sauce right out of the bottle.  Even when she was a little girl she gave me a run for my money.  I'll never forget when she was about three years old and she and her cousin of the same age got a hold of the Desitin diaper ointment and smeared it all over themselves, the entertainment center, the television, and the carpet.  After the initial sense of horror in catching them doing something so awful and nearly impossible to clean up, all I could do at the time was laugh!

Dr. Joel Goodman said something very wise, "Someday we'll laugh about this.  Why wait?"  Why do we wait?  There is nothing like laughter to relieve us from our troubles.  We know from countless  medical studies that laughter is beneficial to every system in the body and helps to release stress. We should find every opportunity to tilt our head back and let out a good, heartfelt, belly laugh.  Norman Cousins tells us that, "Laughter is inner jogging."  Don't you love that? We all need a healthy dose of "inner jogging." And "inner jogging" is contagious.  Have you ever been in a room with someone with an infectious laugh?  It's impossible to keep from joining in with your own laughter.  Charlie Chaplin, one of the funniest men to ever live said, "A day without laughter is wasted."  

And from Bill Cosby, "Through humor, you can soften the worst blows that life delivers.  And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it."

Life has given me countless experiences to laugh over.  I've had to find humor in surgeries, job losses, heart attacks, and relationship woes, but parenting has been the greatest inspiration for all that is laughable.  Daily there is something  to do some "inner jogging" about.  One experience that I will never forget was when my youngest daughter at the tender age of seven misread the words from a book about Siamese cats, "You should have your cats 'sprayed and nurtured'."  Every time we hear the slogan "spayed and neutered", we remember that day.  Every time I step into an elevator, I think of when my oldest daughter was little and how she fearfully referred to them as "alligators." Or every time my middle daughter has a sleepover, I remember the time that our oldest son hid under his sister's trundle bed and reached out and dragged her kicking and screaming down underneath.  That may sound a bit macabre, but this is the same teenage daughter that thinks she is here to help me build character; who does more than her share of flashing those big brown eyes before getting into all kinds of mischief.  The whole family laughed for months because she totally had it coming.  

I'm glad that God gives us these moments to cherish and laugh about.  I hope that my "inner jogging" has brought you a little "mini vacation" today from all that is troubling in the world.  Take time to laugh, every day if you can.  Laughter truly is the best medicine to all of life's ills.  And when we come to the end of our days, I hope that those lines of laughter will be engraven at the corners of our eyes and mouths or as William Shakespeare puts it, "With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come!"