It can be embarrassing to admit that you’ve come to be thankful to people and events for which you felt little thanks when things were fresh. Unfortunately, this happens to me quite often while driving down the highway. Some obscure corner of my mind is turning over the bits and pieces of the past. It can be a bit of a confessional moment when you realize that while you still dislike someone, they inadvertently did you a good turn.
I stop to pay a bit more attention, most of my mind still on the road, ” OK, it’s true that if that hadn’t happened, I’d have never gone to college. But let’s not get down on our knees in adoration, for Christ’s sake. It’s not as if it was done out of concern for my well-being!”
My wife is napping beside me. The downside of shopping with a night shift nurse on Saturday is that she sleeps while we are out driving. But at least she’s not awake to see me mutter, deliver snide asides to myself, and reexamine past events for the thousandth time.