Today, I went to the nail salon to get a manicure. Normally, I plan ahead and make an appointment, but I today I just went there when I found the time. They were busy, but I got lucky and didn’t have to wait; shortly after I sat down, three different people came over the course of the next five minutes, and were asked to come back in another hour or so. It made me chuckle, because it brought a funny memory to the forefront of my mind that I then promptly realized no one was left to understand but me. In keeping with my newfound resolve to lean into anything positive lately, I figured I may as well share the memory here. Maybe it will make you chuckle too.

When my parents were on their honeymoon in October of 1985, they had stopped at a rest stop during the drive and were about to walk inside to Burger King when a huge bus full of tourists pulled in. As the story my parents both loved to tell goes, my father muttered to my mother, “beat the bus! Beat the bus!” They wanted to get inside as quickly as possible so that they could order their food before the massive rush of tourists from the bus mobbed the place. They did indeed “beat the bus”, and it became almost a family motto for them, and for us as a family of four once my brother and I came along. Anytime we needed to hurry, or whenever we saw a crowd of people on our way to somewhere, we would tell each other, “beat the bus!”

So today, in the nail salon, it seemed I had “beaten the bus” in arriving there when I did, and a bittersweet grin crossed my face before I could stop it. I know it’s probably not funny to you, readers, but it’s an inside joke that’s older than I am, and I have no one to tell it to anymore who already has that context. So, thank you for pinch hitting here. It is one of those rare good memories I have of my parents, of my childhood, a precious reminder that they did love each other once, that things weren’t too bad once, before it all went to shit.

I think “beat the bus” can take on another meaning for me these days. I have a hard time seeing positive things first sometimes, especially since when it comes to my past I have to really dig deep to find a lot of it. But the truth is, it wasn’t all bad. (My therapist says that makes it more challenging to heal, not less so, because it’s less straightforward. Six and a half years into therapy and counting, I’m in no position to disagree.) I think it would be great to make myself “beat the bus” of those negative thoughts, to get ahead of that distress before it can steamroll me and order up all the milkshakes and onion rings. (Does Burger King still have onion rings? They did back then!) This takes a lot of mental energy and strength, a lot of conscious, sometimes painstaking effort. It’s a whopper of an endeavor, if you will!

It’s not a matter of ignoring all the bad – that would be impossible. Maybe though, just maybe, there’s just a little room to allow what bit of good there was to coexist alongside the bad…and maybe it’s okay to let the good stuff “beat the bus”, once in awhile.