Usually I get a great parking spot about a block away and arrive to this party on time. This year, I accidently parked a mile and a half away and missed the shuttle. Oh well, Americans don't walk enough. I started walking in the dust to the festival.
Walking in flip flops, I wasn't moving fast because I had just recieved a pedicure. It was my first one (pedicture that is). It was a thrill picking out a "coror" (color), having my nails painted by someone else, and hearing about how my nails were too short. But for real, I did enjoy it! However, walking through the dust made me very aware of my recently pampered feet and not to mention I was wearing one of my favorite navy sun dresses and was feeling like I was on an episode of SATC only two minutes ago.
While walking downhill and thinking about my looks going downhill along with me, I turned around to see how far I had gone.
It literally looked like I could reach out and touch the intersection I had just parked in.
This is how my life might be for I while. I will get all dressed up for interviews, dates, send out crisp demos and resumes. Work so hard for what seems like forever, only to turn around and realize that I haven't come very far at all.
At this point I called my mom and asked where she was. She was headed home. I told her I would too. But she insisted she could turn around and meet me there in a couple minutes. Couple minutes. Try a couple post grad years. After a hopeful second of giving up I started putting one foot in front of the other again, once again looking like the festival was years ahead of me. Car after car passing, not offering pretty little me a ride.
Feet looking like a different race, hair oily and thigh bruised from my bag swaying and hitting it, there came a time where I looked back and realized how far I had come. I was more than half way there. Encouraged, I kept walking.
I got to about three fourths of the way there when I heard a break next to me. "You want a ride?" the shuttle driver asked me. The shuttle had passed me a couple times, but this was the first time the woman noticed me. I was thrilled, and although part of me thought "Well, I've come this far", I agreed and hoped on the bus. The man in the front row smiled and made room for me. There was free bottled water on the shuttle... or was it Heaven? We pulled up to the festival two seconds later.
I know I am going to struggle in life. Who doesn't? But I know that if I keep putting one foot in front of the other, sooner or later God will send a shuttle bus to pick me up.
This is a picture my friend Forrest tagged me in on facebook about a year ago. My friend Forrest isn't black. Like Black Forest Festival.
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