When I worked at the Record-Courier in Gardnerville, I'd drive from Dayton and back again each day.
On many of those trips, I'd see accidents along Highway 395 between Carson and Minden and thought over and over, "How did that happen?" After all, the road is straight with two lanes each direction; hardly a road that should invite so many problems.
I stopped asking that question when I realized that in order to truly have an answer, I would most likely have to experience an accident first hand.
I didn't really want to know the answer that bad.
Life is kind of like that.
Especially when, like myself, you are a person who analyzes every last detail of any given experience.
I'm still waiting on answers from crap that happened 20 years ago.
The mystery always deepens of course, when some life event (usually unpleasant), facilitated on your reality by another person (over whom you've no control), takes place.
What could I have done to make things better? Why did that person choose what they did? Do they even have a clue what their actions have created? What was the lie? What was the truth? How could I have not seen X, Y and Z or been so stupid?
"Have you noticed," observed my dear friend of 20-plus years, Randy Wyckoff. "That those who do bad things to others never seem to get theirs?"
I laughed, because we've all experienced it.
Of course, any good Christian will say that God has the final judgment.
Lovely. Unfortunately, I'd really like to see karma happen while I've got front row seating in my beach chair drinking a margarita. That's the human part of who I am. The spiritual part of me struggles with that thought.
Always so many questions and, since some folks don't want to own their poor choices, there's often no resolution. Because to give that gift, would mean taking responsibility. Would mean admitting they (gasp!) blew it.
I have raised my daughters to embrace their blowing-it-ness. Because we all do it. It's part of the human condition. I believe, in teaching them this early on, it might save them from taking ownership of that which is NOT theirs to own (like their fantastically, co-dependent mother has done) and give them the courage to own that which IS theirs.
So many of us carry others' issues, burdens, choices. Holding on to them like the last vestiges of fall.
For when the last leaf hits the ground, what remains?
Questions.
It's hard to accept that sometimes there will never be answers. Would I believe what the person had to say? Quite doubtful.
While sitting around the campfire at Lake Lahontan this summer, we women were pondering all this, when Tammy Giovanetti offered words that have resounded in me since she spoke them.
"You know, after I have dissected and analyzed every last detail of a situation or someone's actions and realize I still don't have the answers, I conclude one thing," she said. "It wasn't my issue to begin with."
It wasn't my issue to begin with?!
Could it really be that simple?
Yes.
And accepting the simplicity of that, becomes its own special challenge!
In other news:
Proactive Parents of Dayton, "P-Pods," will meet Oct. 17, 6:30-8 p.m., at Bouncerz on Deer Run Road. Pizza will be available for a nominal donation and children are welcome. The group will be discussing issues related to problems encountered with Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Mental Health and Developmental Services (Rural Regional Center). P-Pods is a support group for families of children with disabilities. Call Glenna at 246-8028, for more information.
If you have a business in Lyon or Storey counties and would like to have your business profiled in the Business Briefcase segment of the paper, please let me know. It's a free service provided by The Nevada Appeal and showcases a person at your place of business (it can be you or an employee). Call me and I'll deliver, mail, fax or e-mail the questionnaire to you and schedule a photographer.
Have a blessed week!
• Karel Ancona-Henry can be reached at kanconahenry@sierranevadamedia.com or 246-4000.