In the sixth chapter, entitled “Driving Lessons”, Roxanne shares her story of how she learned to drive and offers it as a familiar analogy between navigating traffic and navigating the challenges life presents to us.
There are those of us who careen through challenge, uncertainty, obstacles and fear with tremendous belief in how things will simply work out in the end. Then, there are those of us who hold back, assess and evaluate, obsess and worry about the unknowns we are about to be facing. Typically, those two dimensions are found in us all, but we generally have a tendency to rely on one end of the action spectrum more than the other. It takes a person, situation or experience that forces us to step outside of how we tend to react and step into a new way of exploring a new path. In this chapter, Roxanne comments to her mother that she didn’t know how she could drive in such a chaotic environment, which leads her mother to call her on her uncertainty and prove to herself that she could understand, if she simply tried.
In the end, Roxanne does successfully make her way through the lesson and as she pulls to a stop, her mom states “There,...Nothing will ever be that hard again”. This lesson in driving delivers Roxanne to discover a part of herself she may have taken many more years to find on her own, thanks to the strength and determination of her mother on that fateful day. We are often bewildered by those who show such unfettered courage to boldly go forth, as we shake our heads in disapproval of their disregard for the uncertain, and potentially threatening, fate that awaits them. Yet, we have to also admit that we are drawn to these same people with a sense of admiration and desire to be within physical range— in case their courage might somehow rub off on us.
For myself, I had a person provide me with a challenge to climb behind the wheel. And, as it was with Roxanne, I didn’t initially see this opportunity as the gift it eventually came to be.
Before I knew I had lupus, I spent four months of excruciating pain and numerous red blotches all over my body, when my husband learned that he had finally made partner in his law firm. Since I knew he was experiencing a great deal of stress in wondering about his future there, I dismissed his hurtful comments about how I was “looking for attention” or bringing him “down” at a time when he was supposed to be happy for achieving this career goal. However, on one particular evening, as I sat on the stairs trying to mentally prepare for the climb up towards the bedroom, knowing that the pain in doing so would leave me at the landing in tears, my husband made his way upstairs for the night as well. He stepped over my huddled body, turned and looked down at me and asked “When are you going to get over yourself?” Not waiting for me to answer, he left me sitting there, as he had done for the last four months, without offering me a steady hand, loving encouragement, or reassurance that my suffering mattered to him at all.
That moment, for me, was like a slap of reality that is often given to someone experiencing hysteria. I realized that I was not only sitting on those stairs trying to make it up to bed, but I was also trying to make it up the stairs to end another day of both physical and emotional pain that was due to repeat itself within eight hours. My tears weren’t just for the fear of the pain, but of the fear that I had stepped farther away from the person who deserved to be cared about and loved. Within a week, he left the marriage to seek the “fulfillment [he] deserved, but would never have by staying” with me. I never again sat on those stairs and cried in preparation for the climb. I have also been free of that crippling pain since his departure.
I now climb all stairs with the appreciation for what every single step can mean for me.
In retrospect, my now ex-husband wasn’t someone whom I admired for his courage. I now understand that I was the strong one all along. Without his faults, however, I know it would’ve taken me much longer to come to appreciating what I could endure, aspire to and love about myself.
Is there someone in your life, past or present, who you feel, out of sheer inspiration (or, as in my case, flagrant apathy), was instrumental in pushing you towards learning more about yourself – becoming more bold or learning to pace more conservatively? How about life aside from illness and just in general? Do you still seek this individual for their qualities or have you developed, just as Roxanne did, a new sense of your own personal style in tackling the chaos that life throws at you? Do you feel as though you could now be that person who could inspire someone else?
I bet you are.
