Life Has a Funny Way of Slowing You Down
Finding perspective, gratitude, and the next 200 feet after the storm
Life has a funny way of slowing you down.
Sometimes it’s a health scare. Sometimes it’s the loss of someone close to you. Sometimes it’s an unexpected event that causes you to stop, take a breath, and look at things a little differently.
And sometimes, it’s a hurricane.
This past week, we experienced just that.
Like most people along the Gulf Coast, we spent the better part of the week watching weather forecasts, checking hurricane cones, and hoping that maybe, just maybe, the storm would go somewhere else. Not that you wish that on anybody, but there’s a little self-preservation that kicks in when you see your home sitting inside that cone.
As the week progressed, the storm continued to strengthen, and it became pretty evident that we were going to experience some significant weather.
So we prepared. Gas for the generator, food, batteries, rechargeable lights, and eventually hurricane shutters. Family came over, neighbors checked on neighbors, and then came the waiting.
And waiting.
I’ve experienced tornado season growing up in Oklahoma, and while tornadoes can be incredibly devastating, hurricanes are a different animal. The thing that gets me is the constant wind. It just keeps blowing, hour after hour, almost like it’s leaning on everything around you.
Someone sent me a meme during the storm that compared experiencing a hurricane to being stalked by a turtle.
I had to laugh. That’s about as accurate a description as I’ve heard.
Around 6:00 Friday evening, we lost power. Suddenly, all those everyday sounds disappeared. No television, no ceiling fans, no appliances running. Just a dark house, a few rechargeable lights, and the sound of that relentless wind outside.
I’ll admit, I was pretty anxious.
At one point, a neighbor texted that we had a tree down beside the house. He sent a picture, but with our limited cell service, I couldn’t get it to load. We have a couple of large trees close to the house, and I knew exactly which side he was talking about.
Not exactly the news you want to hear while sitting in the dark listening to a hurricane.
Later that evening, when the wind finally settled enough to safely look around, we discovered that a substantial portion of one of those trees had snapped and fallen right beside the house.
I truly believe the good Lord laid that tree down for us. A few feet in another direction, and we would have been dealing with an entirely different situation.
We were blessed, and we knew it.
The Morning After
The next morning, Burchy and I were up early. Still no electricity, no internet, and a yard full of trees, branches, and debris.
First order of business was getting the generator running and the refrigerators powered up.
Second order of business? Coffee.
We temporarily unplugged the refrigerators, plugged the Keurig into the generator, made ourselves some coffee, and headed to the front porch.
And that’s when something interesting happened.
We just sat.
It was still dark. No traffic to speak of. No televisions playing. No phones constantly demanding attention. Just the hum of our generator and a few others in the distance.
We talked about the night before, what needed to be done that day, and how fortunate we were.
As daylight began to arrive, something caught our attention.
Tucked away at the very top of one of our shuttered windows was a little Carolina wren.
At first, we couldn’t even tell what it was. I shined my headlamp up there, and sure enough, it was a bird!
It was curled up in that little spot, hardly moving. We actually wondered for a while whether it was okay.
We walked past it several times, and eventually it poked its little head out and looked around. I even talked to it a little bit.
“Hey, buddy, what are you doing up there? You okay?”
I have no idea how long that little bird had been there. Maybe it had found that spot during the storm and decided to ride things out. Who knows?
But there it sat, taking its time.
Eventually, while we were back on the porch, it simply flew away.
I thought that was pretty cool.
Before long, the other birds started singing again, and the squirrels were making their way around the yard, too.
One of the first things Burchy wanted to do was get the bird feeders back up. Trees had knocked them down, and their usual spots were a mess, but she was determined to get some food out for those birds.
And something else caught my attention as we started looking around the yard.
Our hibiscus plants.
With all the wind, fallen trees, and debris scattered everywhere, those plants looked like nothing had happened. They were still blooming, almost as if the hurricane had never come through.
Business as usual.
There was something pretty extraordinary about that. Here we were trying to figure out where to begin putting everything back together, and those flowers were just continuing to do their thing.
Nature was already trying to get back to normal.
And in a strange way, so were we.
Busy, But in a Different Way
The days that followed were anything but lazy.
We cut branches, hauled debris, raked leaves, cleared gutters, and tried to figure out what to do with a swimming pool that looked more like a pond.
And believe me, it really did look like a pond!
We worked hard. By the end of most days, we were physically exhausted.
But here’s what I found interesting.
Mentally, things seemed a little quieter.
There weren’t lessons to plan, assignments to grade, phone calls to make, or a dozen different things competing for our attention.
We had work to do, but our focus was pretty simple.
What needs to be done right now?
What can we accomplish today?
And what can wait until tomorrow?
One afternoon, I was standing in the garage taking a quick break. I looked out toward the driveway, where Big Red, my old Chevy truck, was parked with the tailgate down. That tailgate had become a makeshift workbench during cleanup.
And there it was.
My license plate.
200FT.
I had to smile.
For years, I’ve talked about the idea of seeing the next 200 feet. You don’t always need to see the entire road ahead. Sometimes you just need to focus on what’s immediately in front of you and keep moving.
Well, there it was again.
We weren’t going to clean up everything in one day. We couldn’t restore the power ourselves. We couldn’t fix everything that had happened around us.
But we could cut the next branch, move the next pile of debris, and take care of the next thing.
Two hundred feet at a time.
And slowly but surely, progress happened.
When Neighbors Become Neighbors
Another thing that struck me was how quickly people came together.
We’ve lived in our home for about six years. Like most neighborhoods, there are people you know pretty well, others you wave to, and some you’ve never really met.
All of a sudden, everybody was outside.
Chainsaws running. Generators humming. People dragging branches to the road.
I met a neighbor I’d never spoken with before. We helped others move fallen limbs and damaged fence panels. Conversations started that probably wouldn’t have happened during a normal week.
And it reminded me of something I’ve seen before, growing up in Oklahoma and witnessing the aftermath of tornadoes and other tragedies.
Difficult circumstances have a way of bringing people together.
People helping people. Not because there’s something to gain, but simply because somebody needs a hand.
There’s something pretty special about that.
Back to the Spin Cycle
We were without power for roughly 75 hours. Others weren’t nearly as fortunate. Some suffered devastating property damage, and tragically, some families lost loved ones.
I don’t want to minimize any of that. A hurricane is certainly not something I’d wish on anyone.
But I do believe that even in difficult circumstances, there can be something worth learning.
For us, one of those lessons was the value of slowing down.
Burchy and I actually started looking forward to those mornings on the porch. Making our coffee, sitting together, listening to the birds, and talking about the day ahead.
We worked hard, laughed when we could, prayed, and tried to appreciate the things we had rather than worry about everything we couldn’t control.
And somewhere along the way, I realized how much of our normal lives we spend caught up in what I call the spin cycle of life.
Always moving. Always thinking about the next thing. Sometimes so busy trying to get somewhere that we forget to appreciate where we are.
Now the power is back. School has resumed. The phones are ringing, schedules are filling up, and life is gradually returning to normal.
And that’s a good thing.
But I hope we don’t forget a few things.
I hope we remember those quiet mornings on the porch. The conversations with neighbors. The laughter during cleanup. That little Carolina wren tucked away above the window. The birds returning to their feeders. And those hibiscus flowers that just kept blooming through it all.
Maybe we can simplify a few things, get a little more organized, spend a little less time distracted, and be a little more intentional with the time we have.
After all, sometimes the difficult moments help us appreciate the good ones a little more.
Life has a funny way of slowing you down.
We don’t always get to choose when it happens, and we certainly wouldn’t choose some of the circumstances that bring it about.
But maybe there’s something to be said for carrying a little of that slower pace back into our everyday lives.
And when that spin cycle starts turning a little too fast again?
Maybe we just need to remember to slow down, appreciate what’s right in front of us, and take life 200 feet at a time.
