The Single Woman’s Dash of Sass: Honk in the Tunnel

Quotes of the Day:

If you can laugh at it, you can live with it.–Erma Bombeck

The heart is a very, very resilient little muscle. It really is. ~Woody Allen

Every once in a while you just have to decide to do something very crazy and very right–just to dare yourself to live. I don’t mean doing something stupid and destructive–just something fun and good and beautiful. ~Regina Doman

Spirit. In every language, in every time and every place, the word has a ring of strength and determination. It is the hero’s strength, the mother’s resilience, and the poor man’s armor. It cannot be broken, and it cannot be taken away. ~R.A. Salvatore

Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good. ~Elizabeth Edwards

The Single Woman Says:

I spent last weekend in the Smoky Mountains with my family and I noticed something very interesting while going through one of the tunnels that connects Gatlinburg to Pigeon Forge: The high percentage of people who laid on their horns all the way through the tunnel. Obviously I had noticed this before, while going through other tunnels (particularly the Holland Tunnel in NYC) but while on this trip I really started to ask myself “Why? Why do people do this?” There’s an old superstition that says honking your horn while going through a tunnel can cause vibrations that make tunnel walls collapse. So WHY then do people go out of their way to tempt fate? Now I don’t think the tunnels are really in any danger of falling (I mean, how many tunnel collapses as a result of horn honking have you heard of on the news?!?), but I still find it interesting that people seem to not just ignore the superstition, they openly and brazenly DEFY it. And after thinking about it, I think I’ve come up with a possible explanation. I don’t think it’s a sign of open rebellion…or a sign that people want the tunnel collapse and want to die. I think it’s people saying: “In the face of challenges and odds and life’s sometimes overwhelming burdens…I’m going to choose to LIVE.” It’s the human spirit’s way of fighting back against the darkness of life and not just searching for the light at the end of the tunnel…but BEING the light at the end of the tunnel. After the past few days of heart-wrenching news stories and heartbreak in Connecticut and endless tears and fears, I think it’s nice to have a reminder of the resilience of the human spirit. The truth is – we don’t WANT to be defeated. We don’t want to tuck our tails between our legs and run for the hills and forfeit the game because of bullies and madness and chaos. We want to stay and fight. We want to rise from the ashes. We want to LIVE. And maybe we show it in really bizarre ways sometimes…like getting tattoos or jumping out of airplanes or honking in tunnels…but the bottom line is: We show it. Through the tears and the heartbreak and the loss and the unimaginable pain and the dark tunnels of life that seem like they might not ever end, we keep going in search of the light.  Because that’s what life is all about. Getting up one more time. Trying again. And again. And again. And again. Refusing to surrender. Laughing in the face of adversity. Triumphing over evil. Never giving up.

Today: I urge you to honk in your own personal tunnel, whatever it may be, as loudly and boldly as you can. Dare to shake the very walls of whatever is holding you back and declare your freedom. Laugh when you have no reason to be laughing. Get so happy, people look at you like you’re crazy! Choose to LIVE, remembering that regardless of how long the road or how endless the night, there is no tunnel dark enough or scary enougn to defeat your inner light.