Rumble Strip

The open road and smooth sailing, a road trip is one of life's greatest adventures. You set out fiil the car and you are on your way.  No traffic just you and the call of the road.  Somewhere along the way something grabs your attention and you veer towards the shoulder. You feel the tires rolling over what is designed to make you realize you are not where you need to be and you need to get back between the lines.  The rumble strip has woke you up. It did its job and you are now heading safely down the road.
    Life in general is a lot like that. We sail along smoothly all is good.  That's when it happens. We loose focus and we are suddenly on the shoulder.  Then we feel the rumble strip our wake up call.  Something that totally knocks you out of your complacency.  Something that makes you realize that life can change on a dime. The Rumble Strip comes in many forms.  Loss of a job, financial troubles, a death, terminal disease are just a few that come to mind. These will cause you to stop down and question your values, your dreams, your own mortality and the life you lived in general. They will make you ask yourself what is important? What is first in my life. Is it money, fame, family, career. It will make you question life's choices.  Sometimes God sees fit to allow us to experience one of life's rumble strip.  It's his way of pointing us in a direction where we need to make changes that not only benefit us but everyone around us.  I've experienced one or two in my lifetime. At the age of 17, I lost my oldest brother at the young age of 25.  That altered my thinking, being seventeen, I was imortal I have lots of time left.  That served to show me life is second by second with no guarantees.  The loss of my mother was another rumble strip. Not the death itself, which was hard. What came to me is all of the things we spend a lifetime accumulating is all in vain.  Yes it brings us joy at the time but you take none of it with you. My mom spent a lot of year accumulating Knick knacks. There were drawers full of things that would never be seen.  There was simply no room for them.  My divorce yet another rumble strip. While there was some good that came from my marriage, my three daughters, it caused me to step back and examine life's choices and determine I will never settle for less than what is best for me. 
    The truth is life is full of bumps in the road.  The rumble strip is not designed to bring you to a grinding halt. It only serves to allow you to make corrections to put you back where you need to be. On life's highway. Happy driving fellow drivers. Watch out for potholes but that's a blog for another day. 

The Price of Getting Older

All my life I've been told wisdom comes with age. While there some truth to that, I think we get a lot more than we expected. As a child we couldn't wait to get older because with age came more freedom. As I get older though I realize there is a price to pay for that freedom.
    I know you are scratching your head and wondering what I am talking about.  Hang with me and I will explain.  As a child we have a world around us. It's a familiar world with familiar faces and places. It's filled with childhood heroes and legends.  We don't think about it because it's always been there. It's all we've ever known. It is after all our world. It should be full of good times friends and laughter. Full of music and memorable moments.  There is a solid wall around you and you feel safe.  You have a family network full of loved ones and life is good.  Then it starts.
   Maybe its a grandparent or a great aunt or uncle. You feel loss for the first time. A brick in your once  solid wall has been removed and life changes.  You are still a child so you don't fully grasp the situation.  After a few years of not seeing that loved one it becomes the new normal.  Yes it hurts but you rationalize that they were old and had a good life.  As you get older and those losses become more frequent, you start thinking about how young they were and they were taken before their time. The losses are getting closer and your once solid wall is looking like a game of Jenga about to crumble.  I look at my own father who will be eighty this year. He came from a large family 11 or 12 siblings. One by one they have all passed except him and his youngest sister.  He has lost his wife, mother, father, cousins and just about everyone he grew up with.  
    We watch as our childhood legends and heroes pass away. Although their shows and music live on, these were people that were always there your whole life.  Our world is constantly changing.  I think about the loss of my mother or Cynthia's dad. How do you deal with a loss that big in your life. The very people who have shaped your life from its very beginning now gone? Yet we have to move on with a piece of our world gone forever.  Some don't like change, we've seen a lot in our lifetime. Things we knew as a child are now extinct. Some changes are good, technology and such. Some are slow to adapt or not adapt at all.  Some changes are forced on you and you have no choice to adapt. We as a human race are great at adapting and moving forward. We don't embrace our new normal we just accept it and wait for the next change.
  Every day I think to myself if only Mama was still here or just one more game of Dominoes with Aunt Iseta or another backyard football game with my big brother Scooter. So many parts of my world are missing.  It's not to be you see because every day is an adjustment to the new normal.  I don't like having to say goodbye to parts of my world.  But that's the price of growing older. 
  If i could offer any advice it would be this. Don't rush it because it's so not worth what you trade to be another year older. Cherish those those that compete your world. We will never be able to go back and enjoy life as it was.  Today is the new normal.

RIP to the bricks in my wall lost this year. 
Kenney Pope
2016
Kenneypope1984@gmail. com