30 Days of Joy: When the Ordinary Becomes the Extraordinary

Note: This article is the next step in my challenge to find joy in something — anything — every day for 30 days. Today’s entry is part 24.

The other day, I said goodbye to my old car.

Yesterday, my wife and I bought a new one.

And today, for the first time, I drove my new car to work.

It was a nerve-wracking experience.

Not because anything out of the ordinary happened, thankfully.

But because when you’re dealing with something new, nothing feels ordinary.

Think about how you feel the first few times you wear a new pair of shoes. They’re the center of your world. Not even fraternity pledges stare at their feet as much.

You’re cognizant of every step, every smudge, every potential puddle, like a soldier sidestepping his way through a mine-infested battlefield.

Now imagine you’re on the battlefield of America’s road system, and countless 2-ton missiles are darting all around you, charging from every angle, threatening to detonate your new prized possession.

That’s what my drive to work was like.

But it couldn’t have made me happier.

As fearful as I was of something going wrong, I was just as appreciative.

Morning commutes are about as mundane as it gets. It takes something special to jolt you out of the haze that’s inherent to routine.

That’s what my new car has done.

But I know it can’t — and won’t — do it forever.

No matter how hard I try, at some point, my new car will simply become my car, my mode of transportation that gets me where I need to go.

The extraordinary will revert back to the ordinary.

Of course, given the anxiety that accompanied every lane change this morning, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

*****

This originally appeared on 100 Naked Words.