Merging and E-Merging

It occurred to me the other day as I drove to an appointment, and merged from the Page Extension to Highway 270 and then to Highway 40, that I don't like to merge in traffic. Not at all. I recall arriving in the "big city" as a young, newly married woman, having never really driven on more than a two lane highway. Back then, I simply learned how to do it, with relatively, no fear. But the more I knew, the older I got, and the less I like traffic, merging was not a favorite thing. But I had to do it to get some places. Surely, I could have been like my friend who never took a highway, only the back ways to places she had to go or drive her children. I don't know if she has ever found her way to the highway!

Well, as I made those merges the other day, it was that time of day when cars are all around. Merging onto Highway 40 is my least favorite, especially in this particular spot, because not only are the cars on your rear, they are in front, braking for those not sure what to do, and the cars come at you from the right and the left. You enter the highway from the left, but if you merge right, you can find your way to my daughter's grave site. So, I was torn, but when the cars were coming from both sides, I just decided to stay where I was, stay the course, and keep on. That's when the analogy struck me, profoundly. Merging is like my life, like most lives, I would suspect. We are jockeying, looking right, left, in front, and behind. We are not sure what is coming from which side, there are days when it is smooth sailing, when there is not a car in sight, then there are days when there seems no spot on the road for me. I put my blinders on and pray for the best, that I do the right thing, that I don't get side tracked, that I look ahead, be aware and keep going.

By merging, I guess I find myself e-merging (my own spelling for it-:). By simply trying, getting up, dressed, in the car, getting together with others for that occasional lunch or dinner date, trying so desperately to take advantage of what is out there, new plays or performances, concerts, opportunities, I am e-merging, as I merge. It all still comes at me, nothing is as it were. Grief has struck and in doing so, has limited all my former ways of living, coping, surviving, driving, and staying on the road of life.

It has struck me so often that grief can be so central to my being, so occupying that even an analogy of driving and merging onto a highway can take me to it. It seems to define my existence, and that doesn't mean in the worst sense. It also means in the ways that I embrace those chances and opportunities mentioned, to seek a new way of doing things, to learn more while I can, to read books that speak to me in ways never before or to attend the performances, such as last week, The Diary of Anne Frank, a dark, yet uplifting true story that we all know very well, thanks to a girl who made the best of a very dark, rancid and dooming situation. Oh, the life that is to be learned from those who have gone before us.

Still, it is puzzling and perplexing, this thing called grief. As it takes hold and hovers and consumes, it is as if the rest of the world cannot tell. Would I even want it to, would I even want everything to stop and focus on me, would I want the security that comes with a world that just carries on to come to a screeching halt just to recognize that I am not the same? Maybe at one time, yes. I suppose that is how I know I am merging and e-merging. I need the world to stay the same, so that there is one constant in my life. For, I am never to be the same. I am learning how to do this, to carry this balance of loss and love, and to "live" while she has "died".

To merge is to take chances, at least from my perspective. I used to avoid it in every way, even going other routes or passing up my exit if I wasn't quite sure I was entirely safe. Now, I know to keep going, look around, make my way, and be stronger. This has become my life, not my way of moving through traffic. I am working to stay the course, look around, be aware, know myself, and move. Just move and live and have the confidence to do the right thing.