I am amazed sometimes at how quickly the days seem to drift by. Here it is, Sunday, the start of a new week and it feels as if it was just last Monday and I was starting another work week. Yet it all begins over again tomorrow. It’s like being on an airplane versus traveling by car. When I travel home by car it’s an 11-12 hour drive, depending on traffic, road hazards, and what type of music I choose to listen to on the radio. Listening to upbeat upbeat music or my favorite tunes seems to make the drive shorter, and let’s be honest, probably makes me drive at a little higher rate of speed.

Same Trip, Different Speeds

As I said, driving home is an all day affair. Or, if I split the travel into two days it’s one entire evening and half of the next day. No way around it, the drive is brutal. Yet if I fly, the same trip takes 2-3 hours and I am home. How is that possible? It’s the same trip, yet a completely different mindset.

Driving is what it is, there’s no shortening the time except for maybe shaving minutes off if all the stars align. I have 12 hours to think, to anticipate arrival, and to feel all the excitement building. Flying is a different experience. You rush to the airport, manage your way through security, go find a seat and then in minutes you’re boarding the plane. You barely have time to close your eyes, put your head back, and enjoy a cool drink when the captain comes on announcing that you’ll be landing in moments.

Suddenly I’m home and the visit begins. It’s the same outcome, achieved at different speeds and with a different mentality.

The Long and Short of It

Life and love are kind of like that aren’t they? Life is the airplane ride. We rush to the airport in preparation, only to jump through hurdles to board. We barely have time to stretch our legs before the journey is nearing it’s end and we must step into what we’ve been dreaming of and planning for.

Love though, is the trip by car. It is the same journey covering the same distance, yet it’s a relatively different experience. It causes us to slow down. There is a map, but there are also unplanned stops and obstructions. The trip is specific to each of us in our own time, and is never the same trip twice. Sure we make our plans, but our plans never go the way we expect and there is beauty and excitement in that. In a hurry to get where we’re going, we sometimes get restless. No matter how we may try though, there is no shortening the trip, as it must play out according to it’s own schedule. Thank goodness for that.

Enjoy The Ride

As we are swept up in the rapid current of living, we also find that there are surreal moments when the pace is slowed just enough to allow us to appreciate the beauty of it all. Days, weeks, months, years all fly by and we’re left looking back in awe at the quickness of it.

Love though, demands it’s own schedule. It can be fleeting, or it can last for a lifetime. We never know which it is going to be when we first get into that vehicle either. It is the loosely planned road trip that we embark upon. We have a map, but the route changes along the way so we adapt and keep traveling onward to see where the road will take us.

In one lifetime, we experience the rush of living and of survival alongside the journey of being and loving. It is an imperfect co-existence in alternate realities. Speed up when you must. Let off the gas and deliberately look around now and then. Most of all, enjoy the trip.