Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Once upon a time, I was born. Then I grew up, got married, had kids, got divorced, fell in love, got married, and got divorced again. And then I fell down a hole and came out in China.

No, really, it's true! I was an extremely shy child preferring the plants in the backyard to the kids in the front. I spent a great deal of time in the backyard where it was inevitable that I would eventually try to see if one could really dig all the way to China. I'm the kind of person that will test a claim or theory - for instance, if something says slow burning, don't be surprised if I light a match to it...

In any case, I kept the deepest hole with me for years, digging a little more in my spare time. Eventually, I recruited a couple husbands and some kids to help with the digging. My best work was done, though, after the second divorce when I had plenty of time to spare and some cool new tools with which to dig. Work progressed at a surprising rate, and one day when I wasn't watching where I was walking, I fell into the hole.

And just like a scene from Alice in Wonderland, the walls of the hole got narrow, then wide, and they had stripey, swirling colors, and at one point stars were shooting past me at an alarming rate, and I started to cry cuz there was dirt in my mouth and nose and twigs were pulling at my hair and something was clutching the back of my shirt and then I fell out in China.

And there sitting on the grass next to me with a fistful of my shirt clutched in her capable hands was my beautiful daughter Jody. And she was laughing and crying and asking me why I dug a hole to China if I was afraid of going there and then she punched me in the arm.

Sheesh!

When the girls were little, I took them to a Chinese restaurant. The second oldest looked down at the two skinny sticks in front of her and burst into tears. "But I'm so huuungry!" she cried. She was convinced that she would not be able to master the use of these strange, new tools before she perished from starvation.

It's fairly normal to panic when time collides with the unfamiliar, especially when it's a drastic, life-changing event. It becomes harder to embrace the many twists and turns in life when we're so aware of how much time has passed and how little of it may be left.

In his last book written, Oh, The Places You'll Go!, Dr. Suess proposes we have an optimistic view towards these unexpected zigs and zags in life. "Congratulations! Today is your day. You’re off to Great Places! You’re off and away!” Life is apt, he illustrates, to sweep you from vista to vale with little or no notice, and it won't always be pleasant, we won't always have confidence, we might even be alone for part of the journey, but it will more than likely turn out fine.

To be honest, I would have preferred traveling to this new place in a less painful way. I don't like cold, dark holes any more than anyone else. But I dug the thing and I fell into it, so I won't bemoan having made the trip in such an uncomfortable fashion. And truth be told, what I've found in this strange new place, the scenery, the food, the people, is far too valuable to regret the manner in which I arrived.

Of course, that doesn't help anyone who is falling at the moment. All I can offer is this - it's normal and natural to feel lost and lonely and scared when you are falling. It's normal to wonder about, possibly even fear, the outcome. If you should fall out the other end, will you be able to survive? Will you be able to communicate with the local inhabitants? Will you be able to eat with just two skinny sticks?

According to Dr. Suess, the answer is "Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed." Those seem like excellent odds to me.