Life As I Know It

It’s a hot summer Texas day. The sun is shining brightly and the sky is the prettiest shade of blue and clouds as fluffy as marshmallows fill the horizon. And there I am, sitting on the front porch, watching as my dad tries to teach my niece how to ride a bike. She’s so determined to be able to do it alone but she keeps falling over, and at one point runs right into a tree. And we get up frantically to help her every time but she just puts up her arms in the air and says “it’s okay. It’s okay. Otra ves abuelo”. And they reset and restart again. Over and over again. By the end of the afternoon she’s bruised, scraped, and very tired. But even after all that when my brother gets home she’s determined to show him what she’s accomplished. So she mounts up her bike. And proudly screams “I can do it, I can do it” just as she runs right into the fence and gets hurt. Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing something over and over expecting a different outcome. It’s ...

It was a late afternoon, the sun was long gone and the rain was pouring. I was tired and worn out. After a long day at work the drive home seemed endless. Maybe my mind had wondered off or I just wasn’t paying attention but within seconds my car found its way to the other lane. I swerved quickly as bright headlights flashed. There I was on a Monday afternoon, in the pouring rain, at 8 pm, completely spinning out of control. And though the wheel was in my hands I didn’t quite know where I was going. And just before I was about to hit the side rail it all stopped, my car, the sound of screeching wheels, maybe even my heart. I had come to sudden halt right before crashing. I sat there with my eyes closed, shaking from head to toe, slowly I felt my blood rushing back in, and my heart began to beat again. I frantically looked all around me and nothing had really happened. I didn’t crash into anyone, nor made anyone crash into any one else. But if you’ve ever been in a similar situation y...