Lost and Found

Dawn Eden is beloved. Of this new realization she says:

What I never imagined was that I could find someone to love the [parts of] me I don't love. My weaknesses, my insecurities, my shortcomings, all the times I miss the mark.

Jonathan and I have been married for almost sixteen years, and I am still staggered by the same realization that amazes Dawn in her brand-spanking new relationship.

For instance, on Monday night Jonathan found out that he needed to be out of town for business reasons from Tuesday morning until Thursday afternoon. This required hurried packing, and--because we are a one-car family--quick decision-making. He could take the car, leaving me stranded with three kids. Or I could drive him way up the peninsula and drop him off at the ferry to meet his colleagues.

For you that might be a no-brainer.

But I get lost.

I don't mean that I miss an exit now and then. I mean that I have zero sense of direction and worse than zero--I'm somehow fundamentally miswired. When I had lived in Lubbock for almost ten years, I still sometimes got lost going to my sister's house. Once, driving alone in Oklahoma City (with a frantic cat on the passenger seat, gnawing his way out of his cardboard carrier) I found where the highway ends. It has a road block and, beyond, a big field.

It's bad enough that my children excitedly tell Jonathan if I don't get lost going to the grocery store. It's bad enough that they tell me, "Mommy, don't use those political signs for landmarks. They might not be there next time. Try to remember the street name."

Yes, you remember correctly. I do indeed have a doctorate. But that's in literature, folks, not in finding my way out of a paper bag. I can read a map, but maps don't tell you what to do when roads are closed for construction, or which streets are one-way, or which side of the highway the exit will be on.

At least in Texas, there are road signs every couple of miles. In Washington, I have discovered, you can drive twenty or thirty miles believing yourself to be on the correct road, before a sign appears to tell you otherwise. In Washington, bodies of water appear suddenly, with nary a bridge when you need one. And mountains, so you can't even see where you want to go, much less get there.

So I was busy screwing up my courage, convincing myself that the kids and I would not still be wandering about the peninsula on Thursday when the time came to pick Jonathan up again, when I noticed that he was thumbing through the phone book.

"What are you doing?"

"Renting a car. I think I can get one from that gas station that's on the way to church. You can get back home from there, can't you?"

He didn't try to persuade me that I could make the journey without getting lost. He didn't ask to me to do it anyway (although I could have done it, and would have done it). He didn't chastise me for being incompetent in this drive-everywhere world. He wasn't even annoyed at spending money on a car rental (and, on one salary, we are a frugal family).

That's when I felt--like Dawn--the enormous relief of being loved and accepted as I am, weaknesses, insecurities, shortcomings, and all.

Update: Julie Leung continues this thread of thought.