So an old friend of mine got in touch with me recently and we did the normal catching up. Needless to say, my updates shocked her. Then she wrote something that sent my mind on a journey. She wrote: “you sound like me sometimes it takes a train running me over to get my attention.” And she’s right. That is usually what it takes.

And her train reference reminded me of something my Mimi once told me. I reference it a lot both in my own life as well as with my clients. I should briefly note that my Mimi, God love her, was not the wise old grandmother with infinite advice. She didn’t have all the answers and the answers she did have usually consisted of lipstick or food. So that’s what makes this little quip so valuable to me.

Mimi said, “When you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, just means there’s a curve ahead.”

That thought sparked by my friend’s comment about it taking getting hit by a train to get my attention created an image in my mind that I think represents the last 4 years or so.

I’m walking in my tunnel with no light at the end. Tired and defeated, I just sit on the tracks ready to give up. Then I hear the train coming. I know it’s pointless to run as it’s too narrow for the train not to hit me. But in an effort to convince myself that I have any control over what’s going to happen, I press myself against the tunnel wall and close my eyes. I don’t see it but all of my other senses are working overtime. I hear the brakes screeching, I can smell the fuel and oil intermingling so much that it becomes a metallic taste in my mouth. And I’m not sure when the steel pierces me and begins dragging me along the side of this locomotive or for how long my body is beaten between the steel and the tunnel wall.

But then the beating stops.

The train continues on but a small widening in the tunnel has allowed the grasp of the steel to release me and drop me in its wake. Confused and bewildered that I’m not dead, my attention is immediately drawn to a shadow. And a shadow could only mean one thing. There is light. Must’ve been carried just enough around the curve to reveal some hints of the light waiting for me at the end. So I get up, as much as it hurts, and I go. Don’t know where the strength comes from but I’m going.

Once you see the light, it seems, it doesn’t matter how battered and bruised you are. You just keep going.