Life's Road Trip

by Kit Duncan

  Drive attractively. Live your life in such a way that only premium people will want to date you.

  Do not quit dating after you get married. If you forget to date after the "I do's" are said, you will soon not know your spouse, and you will soon not enjoy your spouse.

  You know more today about dating than most married adults. Older folks tend to forget how to date. Keep practicing your dating skills all your life.

  Sitting on the couch watching Roseanne reruns or Monday Night Football does not constitute a date. They may be highly entertaining, but dates are much broader than entertainment. Successful dating is also highly entertaining.

  Not all dates lead to the altar, but few of us get to the altar without dating. Dating is a prelude to joining yourself with a life partner.

  Treat your date with the utmost respect. Do not manipulate your date for selfish gains - this will almost always wind up hurting both of you, even if you get what you want today.

  Talk with your date, and listen to your date. Pay attention. Use kind words, and be honest and open. Do not imagine your date knows what you want just because your mind is screaming it so loudly you think everyone in the world can hear. Give your thoughts words. Share what is so for you with your date.

  Always extend the utmost courtesy to your date. Good manners, they say, never go out of style.

  When finally your date becomes your spouse bring your best home. Be kinder to the people you live with than those who do not live with you. Be more patient, more tolerant, more generous, more attentive, more forgiving to the people who share your home.

  You come home from working a long day all you want to do is sit in front of the TV and zone out. Your date- turned-spouse may accept your lethargic behavior with grace for a long, long time. But every night you prop yourself into a vegetative state you are moving yourself from the person you adore more than anyone else in the world. Move too far away and you'll find yourself all alone. This will shatter your world.

  Under no circumstances can you ever afford to take your spouse for granted. You will wail like a baby if you do. Oh, it may take years for your inattentiveness to culminate in the total annihilation of your marriage, but the end will come and you will feel as if your heart has been burred out of your chest with dull razor blades. And when you examine the cause of the demise of this most precious relationship, through your tear-stained cheeks and choking sobs you will recognize: "We took each other for granted."

  Marriage is like a philodendron plant - it can survive many horrific abuses but it will most certainly wither from neglect. Do not neglect your marriage.

  If it takes reading your vows together every night, going out together, anywhere, at least once a week, reading Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Shakespearean sonnets to one another, rubbing one another's tired, callused feet, dancing in the dark, holding hands while watching a movie, tolerating clutter (or perhaps cleaning up your own clutter) - whatever it takes, no matter how silly it may seem at the time, give of yourself. Give of your time and your energy. Give the best of yourself to the one you adore.

  You marriage is an altar. When both of you give with joy and thanksgiving you will both receive an overabundance of life's most precious pleasures.

  It all starts with that first date in your car.

  20

  Journey's End

  It must seem awfully peculiar to you, a young whipper snapper, to read about your impending death.

  The end of your journey will be more nearly what you hope for if you consider the ending from the beginning.

  If you leave the house in the morning and don't have much interest in where you'll be at the end of the day there's no telling where you'll wind up. Thinking about the finish line as you're pulling out your driveway helps you get where you're going.

  We spoke earlier of destinations. Your final destination has all the features of any other goal, but more so.

  Don't consider that death is a bad thing, something for you to be terrorized of all your life. Death will come in its own time. It will not ask your permission, and you will have very little control over it. You may be able to postpone it a bit, but it will demand its due.

  Dying well depends a great deal on living well.

  There are thousands of beliefs and notions about what happens to us after death. I don't know the details about life after death, no one knows. We can imagine, and chances are we will each select a sense of post-life reality that feels good to us, something we can "live" with. For many people, perhaps for most people, we make many choices throughout our life's drive based on what we think may or may not happen after we die.

  You will have to come to your own private ideas about this after life experience. Your private ideas about death will have a great impact on how you choose to drive.

  Each mile you cross takes you nearer your journey's end. I hope your drive is one of great joy and peace, of exploration and jubilation, much laughter, few tears, enormous love and adventure.

  A lot of folks live a kind of foggy existence. They live by default, allowing things to happen to them but not taking much responsibility to make things happen for themselves. Do not live a life by default.

  Make decisions that are in your best interest that also respect the rights of others. Make decisions that enhance your welfare and the welfare of others.

  Someone once said that all people give others joy, some by their coming and some by their leaving. Live in such a way that others will be sorry to see you go.

  Endings are not bad. They are simply the last of things as we know them. Change is difficult for most of us. We are frightened by what we do not know, and we know so very little about death.

  With experience, you will chalk up a few changes, a few losses. You may learn to recognize that some losses, even those terribly painful ones, actually help you drive more surely to a finer road, a better place, a richer heart.

  Getting from pain to paradise can be a heart wrenching drive. Stay focused on the road, listen to good music, enjoy your world as much as possible. Cry if you must, but do not let your tears flood the road - you will skid into a muddy ditch.

  When you do find yourself in that mud (and if you live long enough and interestingly enough, you will invariably find yourself in a few wet ditches) - do not race the engine in your effort to get back on the road as quickly as possible. Revving your engine when you're up to your hubcaps in mud only burns your rubber and slings mud. When you over accelerate in a muddy ditch you don't move your car. You may rock it a little, but you will not get out of the ditch by sheer hope.

  Time helps. No matter where you think you need to go and how quickly you think you need to get there, let the sun dry the mud.

  Calling someone with a winch also helps. No matter how independent you think you are, it's wise to know when to ask for help.

  Kicking the car and sobbing on the side of the road won't help you get out of a mud-infested ditch, but it might release a little tension for the moment.

  Death is the final loss, the final change. Each loss you have, from the time you're born to that last mile of your journey, is an opportunity to learn more about dying, and about living.

  Honor your losses as wise and cherished teachers, and when you finally arrive at death it will not be so terribly frightening for you. Dying will seem, as it is, to be one of the most essential parts of your road trip.

  Drive safely, drive happily, drive well!

  About the Author

  Kit Duncan is a licensed clinical social worker with over thirty years of experience in working with families, children, couples, groups, and individuals. She holds the Master of Science in Social Work degree from the University of Texas at Arlington, and has done postgraduate work at the University of South Carolina at Columbia.

  Kit has worked in mental health centers, adoptions and foster care, children's homes, residential treatment and inpatient facilities, drug and alcohol centers, managed care, crisis stabilization units, the justice
system, and private practice. She has been a caseworker, therapist, supervisor, instructor and program director.

  Kit taught college for fifteen years and has been a presenter at numerous national and regional conferences and workshops. She has been the Clinical Director of Human Services Consultation since 1987.

  Kit lives in central Kentucky. She plays the violin - badly.