Back when my three kiddos were all still living at home ... gosh, those words sort of dug into my heart as I typed them ... my house isn't their home anymore because they all have homes of their own. Which is exactly how it should be ... but I can't help it ... there's a lump in my throat and more than a tear or two filling my eyes. This place that I call home is home in large part because of my children, and though I shouldn't, I will probably always say those words ... "back when my kids were still at home." Geez ... that's not at all the way I intended to begin this evening's post ... geez, geez, geez ... so let's go back to the beginning and I'll give it another shot.
Back when my three kiddos were all still living at home, we all looked forward to the week in March loved by students everywhere ... Spring Break. The kids and I usually traveled to Tennessee that week to see our family, with the exception of a trip to the mountains of Colorado thrown in now and again. Geez ... there's that lump in my throat again and those stupid tears in my eyes ... geez, geez, geez. I suppose I should tell you that I'm feeling extra sentimental this week for several reasons, not the least of which is that my dad's birthday is Thursday ... he would have been 98 years old this year. I can honestly say that not one day has passed in the last 23 years that I haven't thought of Daddy ... not one day. Well, crap ... maybe I should just call it a night and give up on writing what I planned to write for tonight's post. I mean seriously ... do you know how hard it is to type with a bucketful of tears in your eyes? Oh, well ... I'm already in now, so I guess I might as well go ahead and finish the post.
Believe it or not, my original subject matter for tonight's post has absolutely nothing to do with Spring Break other than my plan to lead by talking about how differently I feel about Spring Break now than I did when my kids lived ... well, you know. Back then, I would get almost as excited as Matt, Brad and Meghann when that week rolled around. A whole week to spend soaking up all the love that was present in my little family ... in my mind at least, it was like "Leave It to Beaver" times a gazillion. I'm not quite sure how to reconcile all those fight to the death arguments my kids had during all of that together time ... suffice it to say that those times definitely skewed my "perfect little family" view just a bit. I was planning to close my intro paragraph by telling you that what I most look forward to now when Spring Break rolls around each year is that traffic on my commute is light years less than it is during a normal workweek. And then I was going to make a clever connection between the lighter traffic and parking my car in my garage when I get home ... pulling my car into the garage and hitting the button on my garage door opener to close the door. Yep ... that's what this post was supposed to be about ... parking my car in the garage and closing the door.
Now I know what you're thinking ... "Really, Terrie? A post about parking your car in your garage and closing the door? Seriously? For real? You really were going to write a post about that? You've got to be kidding me." I'm so not kidding, friends ... just keep reading. So a couple of weeks ago, I pulled my car into the garage, pushed the button on the opener and heard the door as it began to close. I live in an older house that has two wooden garage doors that weigh like a million tons ... no, I'm serious ... they have to be the heaviest garage doors in the history of the universe. The door was about halfway down when I got out of the car and headed toward the door that leads inside my house. I had my hand on the doorknob to open the door and go inside when I heard what sounded like a gunshot, and I instinctively ducked and covered my head. Once the garage door was fully closed, I slowly raised my head and looked up at the ceiling half expecting it to cave in on top of me ... of course I did. But then out of the corner of my eye I saw it ... dangling from the steel track, swaying ever so slightly, was a broken garage door spring.
I'll spare you all the boring details of what took place over the next hour or so, but I will tell you that my neighbor Toby figured out how to raise the super-heavy garage door long enough to allow me to get my car out. See here's the thing, friends ... here's why I chose to write a post about parking my car in the garage and closing the door. I chose to write about it because I think there's a lesson to be learned from my broken spring experience ... at least there's one for me anyway. Sometimes I'm a lot like that spring, you know ... all wound up so tightly with tension and stress that it's only a matter of time until I fall apart. Sometimes I'm a lot like my car ... held captive with seemingly no way out. Sometimes I'm a lot like my neighbor ... doing everything I can to help a fellow traveler in need. And sometimes ... well, sometimes I'm a lot like the garage door ... sometimes no matter how hard I try, I can't lift myself up all alone. Sometimes I'm heavy, weighed down and broken ... sometimes I simply cannot lift myself up without someone to help me.
Think about it, friends ... maybe, just maybe, that broken spring on my garage door is about way more than just a broken spring. And maybe it's about way more than just a broken spring for me ... maybe it's about a broken spring for you. Perhaps it is ... perhaps it is indeed.
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