This weekend I took my new peaceful self on the road, and I realized this would be a good chance for me to see how calm I can be while dealing with the inevitable hassles of traveling. Of course, when I'm dealing with a travel-related issue, I never remember in that moment to stay calm and find peace. It's always after, when I'm reliving the situation, that I realize how un-peaceful I really was. The weekend was just chock full of opportunities to lose my peaceful focus: an 8-hour roadtrip with my family; driving in a caravan with two other cars; dealing with rainy weather; and watching football. The whole family/football thing was no big deal. My family and I travel really well together, and I am just generally very apathetic about football (the same cannot be said about basketball, however). We went to the Indiana/Michigan game, which was a bit of a family rivalry since dad is a Michigan fan and Brother went to Indiana. The other people in our caravan were some of dad's Michigan buddies. There were, however, three situations in which I felt my sense of calm was being tested.
First, we had to deal with some rainy weather. Ugh, just typing that made me feel whiny. The thing is, a 30% chance of rain in Memphis means it's not going to rain. We learned that a 30% chance of rain in Bloomington, Indiana, means not only is it going to rain, but the rain is going to just settle right over the parking lot where you are trying to fire up your fancy tailgate grill. The whole time the rain was falling, I was fretting. I worried that my jacket wasn't waterproof. I worried that my shoes weren't waterproof. I worried that I didn't have on enough layers to combat the icy temperatures. I even (so shameful) worried about my hair. The rain did finally end; we grilled up an amazing lunch, and the weather during the game was absolutely perfect, albeit a little chilly. I regret the amount of time I spent worrying about the weather. I wish I had just given myself a weather pep talk (I do this a lot... it goes something like "It's raining, and it's going to be raining for a while. You will get wet. Deal with it and move on." It's how I made it through this summer's record high temps. Yes, I'm a nerd) and allowed myself to enjoy the day despite the showers.
Of course, I also think my bad attitude toward the rain was partly due to my exposure to Peace Roadblock #2, who I will just call Negative Nancy. One of the couples in our caravan was someone my dad met while watching Michigan football. No one we were with knew them very well, but when we found out they had tickets to the game they were invited to caravan and tailgate with us. The husband was very nice. The wife was very... well, just negative. She hated everything we did. She complained that the drive took eight hours instead of seven, and she argued this point as if she thought she could magically erase an hour from the drive. She was too tired to join us for dinner. And on Saturday, the first thing out of her mouth at the rainy tailgate was "I hate this place!" She made friends with some people who had a tent, stood in the corner of their tent all day, and didn't open her mouth except to complain about the rain, the cold, her hair (yes, this is sounding familiar. I am ashamed of myself. But at least I just spent the day worrying to myself instead of complaining to others... right? Right?) Her negativity became a bit of a joke to Brother and me. We started anticipating what she would complain about next. At the end of the game, which her team won, and which she almost missed because she wanted to sit in the car by herself instead of sit out in the cold, she came up to us and blurted out, "This was one game I was hoping wouldn't go into overtime! I don't want to sit out here any longer than I already have!" Really??? That was the best game I've watched in a while, and that's all you can say? Okay, sorry, I can feel myself losing my cool as I type.
I think what I learned from that was how much I let others' opinions affect mine. Maybe I would have been okay with the rain if she hadn't complained about it so much. Or maybe I'm just unfairly blaming her for my bad attitude. I think maybe it's a little bit of both. I think I could have snapped out of my rain-induced funk and truly enjoyed our soggy tailgate if she hadn't been with us. Negative people are draining. You can try disagreeing with them, you can try being positive when they're being Debbie Downers, but in the end is it really worth the effort to keep reasoning with them? They'll wear you out or they'll pull you down with them. Either way, you end up negative too.
How often have I been that negative person? Have I ever been the Debbie Downer who ruined someone else's weekend? Have I complained so much about something that it became exhausting for others to be around me? I feel like that's not very peaceful of me. Unloading my problems on unsuspecting bystanders... that's not who I want to be. And I don't know what the answer is here. Do I pray for a joyful heart, for the ability to stay positive in situations that would normally get me down? Do I pray for the ability to rejoice during times of trial (knowing that the testing of my faith produces patience, according to James 1:2-4)? Maybe I'll try that and see where it gets me.
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