Traffic

The bridge I drive across every day to take the kids to school is under construction until October. Which means I have to take the long, busy, stop-light laden way, which means leaving earlier and dealing with more cars that cut you off because everyone is in a hurry to get someplace. Which means we no longer get to pass by the two horses we usually see and remark on. Which means the way home takes twice as long. Today on the trek home--after a day of running errands and taking Phoenix to the doctor and sitting there for 2 hours for x-rays and waiting for her to be able to provide a urine sample with no time for lunch and a splitting headache--sitting through several light changes just to move a few feet, I had had enough. I guffawed and groaned and cursed the road. And then Fisher started in and both of us were lamenting 'come on, let's go already' at long lights and a sea of cars as if we were on an LA freeway during rush hour, as if our words would change things. Here he had spent the last 7 hours at school only to be let out to my frustration, only to make it bloom in him. Parents have the opportunity to teach their kids how to handle things by way of example and clearly my example was not something to mimic. And I thought about how this was to be our reality for the next 8 months so I either spend every day for 8 months annoyed by traffic or resign myself to our current fate and deal gracefully. In that moment I felt as if I became liquid as the frustration slid away and I embraced what was--just to be where I was in a car with my son I hadn't seen all day. "You know, Fisher," I said, "I don't want to spend every day getting mad at this road. At least we are together, so lets make the best of it." I asked him to come up with a way we could pass the time better. Hopefully I redeemed myself for my earlier negative outburst and showed him a better way to deal. It's not worth the energy it takes to complain and often our complaints do not and can not change a thing. Yes, the issue of traffic is rather small in the grand scheme, but the method of adapting gracefully is not at all.