Drive Slow Homie

“Don’t eat so fast. The food isn’t going anywhere.”

“Just take your time. There’s no need to rush.”

These are all the things that I tell my five year-old, but I don’t seem to listen to my own advice. This month is extremely busy to say the least. I am traveling twice for work conferences (one is international, the other is domestic), my husband has his usual business trips, we have Logan’s birthday party, two weddings back to back in the same weekend, our youngest is finally getting blessed at the church, our cousin is graduating from High School, we will have family in town, and these are just the things I can remember off the top of my head without looking at the calendar and freaking out.

Earlier this week, I had an appointment downtown, so I decided to park at the train station and get on public transportation instead of being stuck in traffic to and from. I had everything all worked out. Park the car, go to my appointment, come back, get my nail repaired at the nail salon, and pick up the last of my Father’s Day gifts and cards. Somehow I planned to do all of this before picking up my boys from daycare.

Everything was on schedule; my appointment even ended a little early. I was even able to pass by a Sephora without making a purchase. I get back to my car, ready to complete the rest of my errands, but I was stopped in my tracks. While in a rush to catch my train, I absentmindedly left my lunch bag on the passenger seat. This is something I’ve done before – never had a reason to worry about it. Until now. Apparently an old raggedy lunch bag resembles a purse and a thief decided to break my window and take it. To his (or her) surprise, the only thing in that lunch bag was a bunch of vitamins, and an empty blender bottle.

I felt very angry, violated, and upset after it happened. I’m very fortunate that the damage was minimal, I wasn’t hurt, and the dumb ass thieves didn’t steal the car seats or my phone charger. But as I’m typing this, I’m watching the repairman install a new window, and I can’t help but think of the lessons I’ve learned from this whole ordeal. The obvious one is to never leave anything in the car ever again. But I also learned that this was a sign for me to slow down. I was, and have been doing a lot lately. As a Mom, multitasking has become second nature to me. When my boys were young, once they fell asleep or were preoccupied with a toy, I tried my hardest to scratch everything off of my to-do list because time was truly of the essence. On any given day, I am usually cooking dinner, while washing dishes, while washing clothes. I can even admit to washing and deep conditioning my weave (that’s not on my head) while I am in the shower….on the way to the airport at 5am for an international flight. The true definition of “doing too much.”

Even waiting on the repair man to arrive to the house has shown me that sometimes I just need to slow down and be patient. My mother always said, “Even Jesus rested on the seventh day.” In addition to the bill for the window, all my new vitamins, a new blender bottle lunch bag, this was definitely a teachable moment. I need to pump my brakes and drive slow homie.