The Sh#% Your Parents Should Tell You

You're Never Really Stuck

Often when I take my daughter Kimiko to school, I have to drop her off in back at the designated student drop off. Known to me as the infernal time suck, it is a mostly chaotic dance of cars and students choreographed by numerous individual desires to economize one's own passage through the drop off and get the hell out of there, 'cause you know, things to do. It works, but barely, and not without a generous helping of stress for all. Me included.

One day, I felt particularly enmeshed. More cars than usual plugged up the place, more kids flooded the lanes. No one was moving. Frustration began to boil within me. I felt my hands tighten around the steering wheel. I clenched my teeth. I leaned forward as if the gesture might push people along. I yelled in exasperation, "Move it, jerks! I want out! Now!"

Suddenly, a realization dropped into my brain: You'll get out of here.

It was true. I would. Maybe it wouldn't happen as quickly as I would like. Maybe I'd have to endure a few impertinent parents, some slothful students, or some other annoying unpleasantries along the way. But I wasn't going to remain stuck in that parking lot for the rest of my life or even longer than I feared. Though it didn't feel like it, I was moving. I was making forward progress the entire time.

The stress I felt, the frustration roiling within me, stemmed entirely from my desire to not be there in the first place, from my not accepting this is simply the way the drop off was. I wanted exit on my terms, on my timetable, and this situation was simply not cooperating. Once I let go of the "my" in the situation, once I accepted it for what it was, my stress evaporated. The experience became quite tolerable. And guess what?

I got out of there.

At numerous times in our lives, we will find ourselves in situations that we would rather not be in – stuck in traffic. Working with a douche bag. Jobless. Spouse-less. Sick, afraid, alone. Our natural impulse is to extract ourselves from that state as quickly as possible, to push and shove our way back to "normal," to deaden or ignore any and all pain we feel. Or we dive into our disappointment and plant ourselves at the bottom of our pool of despair, certain we were meant to drown. Either way, we don't want to be "stuck" where we are. We want to be somewhere else, now and on our terms. But rest assured, no matter how mired you feel in your situation, no matter how thick and intractable your night may seem, you're not stuck. You never are. You are moving. Everything is changing. And before you know it.

You'll get out of there.