I leave work, and the problem is that I have not actually left work in the way people imagine when they say “leave.” Physically, yes, I’ve evacuated the premises of my employer and am strapped into my little automotive cocoon. But mentally I’m still marinating in the day’s endless cycle of people who can’t decide whether they want this or that, which somehow means they want both simultaneously, and also can you “just put together a quick deck?” and maybe “loop in finance?” Which is shorthand for “turn your evening into a war crime against your own sanity.” And then you hit the highway and the entire concept of forward motion is replaced with what can only be described as a series of still-lifes in brake lights.
The people around me, and by “around” I mean literally boxed-in like I’m part of a giant human terrarium experiment where the theme is congestion, are not driving. They are performing traffic as an avant-garde art form. They are lane-changing with all the grace and deliberation of a walrus sliding off a rock, except slower, and with turn signals used as confessional statements: not actually meant to inform you but to soothe their own conscience.
And there’s this inner voice, not mine, reminding me that I too have probably been the walrus at some point, nose pressed dumbly against the glass, oblivious. Except in my case the glass is the windshield, and the dumb nose is still mine.
By the time I detour to the hardware store (because the pool-cleaning company has taken the novel approach of being in the business of not showing up at all, which makes firing them feel less like a punishment and more like releasing them to fulfill their destiny), I’m already simmering. And the store employees — lovely people, I’m sure, but in this context about as useful as origami canoes — cannot begin to fathom the thing I’m describing. “No, not that sealant. The pool kind. The one that actually prevents water from leaking, not the one that just makes you feel like it might prevent water from leaking.” Blank stares. Shrugs. One guy wanders off and doesn’t come back.
And of course, because entropy has a sense of humor, this is when my phone rings: my son at school. Its been a qeek since school started and he STILL csnt log.into.his laptop. The office ladies (plural, because they appear to travel in administrative packs) explain that it has been over a week since classes began and somehow he still can’t log into his portal, which is the portal, the gateway to education, the whole point of sending him there. I go in person because phone calls are clearly designed to deflect responsibility, and what I get is a buffet of platitudes: “first week chaos,” “we’re all adjusting,” “these systems are complicated.” What I don’t get is an actual solution. I am, in fact, made to feel that my frustration is the problem, like I’m some kind of bureaucratic Karen for daring to expect baseline functionality.
And so there’s this anger building, this catalog of human incompetence and indifference, the realization that everywhere I go people are obstacles, gum on the sole of my day.
But then (and I hate how trite this sounds even as I narrate it to myself) God interrupts. Not with a thunderbolt but with the casual aside of a friend in the passenger seat.
“That’s pride talking. Weren’t you the guy who left the garage door open last week and only realized when the raccoons got into the recycling?”
He reminds me the commuters are exhausted too, the store clerks are undertrained and underpaid, the school office staff are drowning in a tidal wave of parental panic.
“They’re not obstacles,” He says. “They’re opportunities.”
“Opportunities for what?
“For Caring. For Worship. For Love.”
And of course this sounds like something off a church sign. The problem is it’s also annoyingly true.
I nod and say, “Yeah. You’re right.” Then immediately a guy cuts me off, and I shout words that rhyme with “duck shoe,” which sort of undermines the whole revelation.
“It’s hard,” I tell God. “I want to be better, but I’m not very good at it.”
“My grace is sufficient,” He says.
“That’s one of your go-to sayings, isn’t it?” I mutter. “I bet you say that to everyone.” And I swear I can hear Him laugh, which is both comforting and slightly insulting.
By the time I finally reach the bar where my family’s waiting for Wednesday Night Boozie Bingo (yes, it’s a thing, don’t judge), the air feels looser. I hug my son, Breccan, and in that hug the whole day’s static dissolves a little.
I remember a friend from work who’s Mom had surgery, so I text him for a while. His mom is okay. We joke a bit.
“See?” God says. “There you go!”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” he says. “That’s all you need to do to be better.”
“That’s easy. And it’s great because I want to.”
“Sometimes you won’t want to,” he says.
“What do I do then?”
“My grace..”
“..Is sufficient,” I say. “Yeah, I know.” I sound mad, but I’m not. This, too, is annoyingly right. If God has business cards, he could probably write annoyingly right a lot of the time on it. But he wouldn’t, because not doing such a thing is also the annoyingly right approach.
After a beat, He speaks again. “Just don’t write about it in the post you’re thinking of writing,” He says. “That defeats the purpose.”
“Sure,” I say, and I mean it. For a while, anyway.
I order drinks, carry them back, and of course bump into someone, sloshing his beer.
“Oh no, I’m so sorry!”
He waves it off: “No worries, friend. We’re all just getting through.”
And then, as if curated by some benevolent DJ, Tears for Fears starts piping through the speakers. Everybody Wants to Rule the World. Suddenly it feels like we’re in on some cosmic joke. The traffic, the store, the school, all of it shrinks down to background noise.
For a moment, everything is exactly, absurdly right.