Driving in the Dark

Sometimes, when you make a not-good decision, you know immediately that it was NOT GOOD. And sometimes, when you’re really lucky and you’ve lived a pure life (or close enough), you can immediately reverse the decision before anything REALLY NOT GOOD happens. And that’s what it was like that one night that I was driving from Durham, NC to the Outerbanks. I left home after midnight, with the intention of waking up at the beach with my dog at sunrise. And I did. Except that, somewhere around 3 AM, I thought it would be interesting to see what would happen if I turned off my headlights while driving. On a two lane road cutting through the middle of the wetlands. With absolutely no lights around but the stars.

It was not a good idea. It was terrifying. Pitch blackness, except for the light from my clock in the dashboard, which really only made it harder to see outside the windshield. While traveling at about 60 MPH. Luckily the road was straight. Also, luckily, my hand never even left the headlights switch before I turned the lights back on. Well, I’d had to see what would happen, and I saw what happened. And I will never, ever do anything like that ever again. I’m lucky to have made it to the beach at all, let alone by sunrise. Especially since I was so sleepy by the time I crossed onto the barrier island that I fell asleep while driving over the connecting bridge. But that’s a story for another time.

Better an Oops… — Cyranny’s Cove

“Sometimes in Life, you have to follow your heart.

People will try to convince you that it is not a good idea. They will bring you a hundred good reasons to act rationally, if only to look good in the end. Not to disappoint you, or just to argue with you, but generally because they want to save you from failure.

But failure isn’t always what it seems, and it isn’t necessarely a bad thing…”

https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/101419629/posts/48189

Another fan of the potentially not-good idea. It’s better to know than to wonder!

My Early Not-Good Ideas

I started having not-good ideas at an early age. I mean, we all did, right? But at some point, most people grow out of following through on them. They get smart or scared, or both, and they realize that not-good ideas are called that for a reason. I think I missed a step there, though, because I’m still a huge fan of the not-good ideas. So huge a fan, in fact, that I’m writing about them. The first two “sure, why nots” that I can remember did not turn out well for me, so I really don’t know why I planted my flag so firmly in the not-good idea camp.

(SIDEBAR: That sounds like a spectacularly bad place to send your children for sleep-away camp, doesn’t it? Not-Good Idea Camp, where the marshmallows are roasted on bamboo, the friendship bracelets are made out of twigs, and the counselors answer every question with, “Eh, see what happens!”)

I’m really not sure which one came first, but both of my eight-year-old not-good ideas were physical: jumping rope while wearing roller skates, and turning a cartwheel while holding a stick in each hand in an attempt to have the sticks (instead of my hands) support me while I was upside-down. Both ended with tears and bloodshed. But you better believe I learned some lessons.

In the first case, I discovered that just because I can do two activities separately, it doesn’t mean that I should do them both at the same time. Each activity introduces variables into the equation that increase the difficulty factor of the other. So, maybe it’s better just to do one thing at a time. Rock that one, then move on to the next one. Fewer skinned knees that way.

In the second case, not only did I learn the value of working up to a challenge (like maybe try a handstand on sticks before a cartwheel), but I was also introduced to the concept of “prepare for the worst, hope for the best”. You see, I attempted this trick on a walkway “paved” with crushed clamshells. Not the softest of landing surfaces for my inevitable face-plant. Next time I tried something that may or may not have worked out, but it involved me being inverted or at the mercy of momentum, I certainly did my best to ensure myself of the softest possible landing, no matter which end touched down first.

All good lessons. Still applicable in my life. Still haven’t succeeded in doing a cartwheel with a stick in each hand.