Opportunity

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work." Thomas Edison

You know what else it usually looks like for me? An "opportunity" (groan ...) to face an old and deeply embedded fear. A paranoia. The kind of thing that carries the learning of prior experiences, and they're all bad. The kind of thing like driving. Driving. Oh, man. This is probably my last chance to get over this, but I break out in a wild combination of hot flash and cold sweat just thinking about it. I have to start imagining myself as joyfully successful and wildly competent to make the palpitations stop. I don't even drive cars other than the one I drive all the time, and now there is this "opportunity" for a whole lot of work at overcoming my issues, learning to drive the Bookmobile! The library's Bookmobile!
Our district is huge, but this bookmobile is only used here, in Skamania and Klickitat counties. That's all. Just here, in the Columbia River Gorge, where every street is either up or down a hill, the ice and the snow and the rain make driving anything at all into an "opportunity" to do something spectacularly horrible, and the winding roads that cling to the sides of the rock faces are perfectly wonderful ... for a fearless motorcyclist or some other daredevil.

(Just a minute. I need a hyperventilation break.)

(That's me ... in the size of paper bag I need for breathing into ...)

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Okay. Okay. Okay ... "soft belly" breathing technique ... change the channel ... get off the "Disasters on the Road" video loop ... move to the mental image of Bookmobile happiness. Turn away from the pedestrian on the freeway who ran into my car about 20 years ago (yes, really - yes, she ran into me), and mute the sound of shattering windows and suddenly crushing metal as I spun in the road when the prom princess plowed into my Volvo with her boyfriend's huge, black pickup truck about 5 years ago (yes, really). Remember that my glasses make depth perception possible, even though I'm near-sighted in one eye and far-sighted in the other (yes, dammit! really!).

Envision Bookmobile success. Remember the reality of two important facts: first, I love working on the Bookmobile, once the thing is parked and the sat link is up, and the kids are in there; and second, I am only being asked to train as a substitute, and at a level of subbing which includes story hours, and story hours are a much more likely scenario than Bookmobile anything. Think about those kids, and the delicious stuff overheard every time the Bookmobile is full of them. Realize that the addition of this training makes a resume look better and better for the day permanent part time comes available again. Focus ... breathe ... wake up to the opportunity.

(whimper)