When I was a kid, and we still lived in Colorado, my dad taught Driver’s Ed.
He had one of those boxy, late model 1970’s Fords with upholstered bench seating in the front and the back, and it was fitted with a break pedal on the passenger side. It was a horribly un-cool car, but learning how to drive in that car was part of the drill when you were going to be a licensed teenage driver in the state of Colorado. My sister was already in high school when my dad took over this job for the school district, which made it very embarrassing to have her dad be “that guy.”
[Side Note: To be fair to my dad, my sister’s bank of cool points based on who she was related to had already been badly bankrupted by yours truly. I had terrible ear infections as a kid, and so I had to have tubes inserted into both of my eardrums. When the tubes fell out, it took ages for the holes in my eardrums to heal. But one day, I made this amazing discovery:
If I plugged my nose, and pushed really hard, I could make my ear whistle! And I’m not talking about a whiffy little sound. No sir. This was a loud, and proper high-pitched “toooooot!”
After this discovery was made, I enjoyed taking my little dog and pony show on the road. My favorite place to perform was on the school bus. I had a captive audience of admiring elementary school kids to entertain. But my act reached legendary status one day while we were all waiting for the bus to arrive. It was a bitterly cold morning, and so when I pushed the air out of my ears, a startling little puff of steam came out, too! (Epic!)
One day, well after my sister started her freshman year of high school, she seemed kind of miffed at the dinner table.
When my mom asked her what was up, she said, “I had a bad day. This sophomore guy came up to me today, and he asked, ‘Hey — is your sister that little kid that can whistle out of her ears?’ I was like, so embarrassed.”
Then my sister bitterly took another bite of her hamburger that looked more like a Brillo pad on a bun.
I have a vivid memory of my mom trying not to laugh, while I gave myself an inner high five! An actual high school boy knew about me? Awesome! Score a point for the nerds!]
Anyway, back to my dad and Driver’s Ed.
He was very concerned with driver safety — as am I. (Clearly, I am the product of excellent safety training!) But all kidding aside, my dad was also concerned with passing on incredible wisdom to his daughters, and for me, one of the best life lessons he ever shared with me had to do with his keen understanding of the rules of the road.
“Sonja,” he said, “when you think about your relationships with others, consider yourself to be like a highway. You not only have to figure out how fast you want your relationships to go, but you also have to know how to enforce your relationship limits in a way that people will honor and respect. If you post a speed limit for your highway, but no one ever gets a ticket for speeding and running all over you, they will always take advantage. You’ll only give people permission to mistreat you if you’re unclear about what you need from them. But you need to be fair. If you give some people grace, but have zero tolerance for others, you’ll only make it confusing to be in relationship with you. So set your limits now — before you invite people in — and then always enforce your limits with love and wisdom.”
I’ve thought about my dad’s words of advice for most of my life. He was absolutely right about how important it is to set your limits, and then enforce them. There have been some seasons of my life where I’ve been better at following my dad’s counsel than others. But I think by the time Lou and I moved to Orange County, I was just so ready to be in the flow of things that I dropped my guard on most of my posted personal limits. I was so eager to feel any kind of forward momentum that I remember being willing to let my life become a full-on motor speedway.
