The Storm Will Pass

I spent the past weekend in Waverly, IA with my friend Andreya for the annual Waverly Heritage Days Celebration. Two days of hanging out, listening to awesome cover bands, eating good food, and drinking way more alcohol than my mother would care for me to admit. Waverly is a good 3 hour jaunt from Storm Lake, so I got up and got ready to leave about 11:00 Sunday morning so I would be back home by mid-afternoon. I'm getting ready to leave, and Andreya comes to help me carry my stuff out to my car, and she goes "It's raining, by the way." I'm thinking like a gentle summer rain, whatever. No. Torrential downpour would be the better term to describe it. I got out of Waverly and the rain let up a little bit, but it was still a pretty strong shower. As I'm driving along, I get about 10 miles out of one town, and 4 miles away from the next town when the HEAVIEST rain shower I've seen in quite awhile. Rain so heavy that I couldn't see a foot in front of me driving, my windshield wipers needed to go about 30x faster to compensate for all the rain, that kind of rain. Couple that with the fact that it was a part of Highway 3 that has lots of curves. *cue Kelsey panicking severely* I'm leaning as far forward as I can to see, driving 10 miles per hour, saying Hail Mary's as quickly as I can, and channeling the bad-assery of my Grandpa Struck by telling myself that I can drive the damn box that the car came in. I also had that scene from 27 Dresses where Katherine Heigl is freaking out because she's hydroplaning LITERALLY 10 seconds after James Marsden tells her that she needs to slow down or she will hydroplane. So, that's all going on. I'm telling myself that if I can just get to that next town, I'll pull into a Casey's or McDonald's and wait for the rain to let up a bit before I continue driving home. So, I kept going, very slowly, praying fast. As I get closer to town, the rain starts letting up, and I look ahead and I see bright, clear skies. The worst part of my drive home was over, and it was smooth sailing for the remainder of the trip.

I often come up with blog ideas while I'm driving out of sheer boredom, but this one is a direct result of the circumstances I had to drive in. Sometimes, life is like that stretch of time 4 miles before Hampton. You can hardly see what's going on in front of you, you've got to move along a lot slower than you would like, you throw up a lot of prayers because you aren't sure what else to do, and you generally aren't sure if you are going to make it to the next goal or destination because it seems like everything is way too difficult to get through. But, you persevere. You keep going. You tell yourself that if you can just get to the next point, the next milestone, you'll find a spot and rest there awhile until the situation lets up a bit. There's nothing wrong with taking this path, and sometimes that's what you have to do, especially when situations are really big, really scary, and really difficult to get through. Sometimes, though, we don't need to stop and rest like we anticipated. Because all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the world gets brighter, the difficult part of whatever you are going through is behind you, and your journey becomes much more enjoyable, you can speed up your pace, and it doesn't seem nearly as scary anymore.

I made it through that scary storm. I didn't think I would, but with perseverance, a little faith, and good driving skills taught to me by my mother and my driver's ed teacher (shoutout to Mr. Torrey!) I got to that next town and saw the clear skies ahead. And whenever life decides to throw me a storm (whether it be an actual storm like yesterday or a figurative storm,) those same skills and that same wisdom I came up with on the nice part of the drive home is going to help me get through those storms. I'll get through them, and then I'll coast along with the enjoyable parts of the journey, whatever that journey may be.

Ciao.