Buckle Yourself In & Enjoy the Ride 

When my wife went into labor with our daughter, we spent a long, uncertain night in the hospital. My driver’s license said I was 26, but I was a kid myself—completely out of my depth. If I left my wife’s side to go to the bathroom or cafeteria to grab a soda, I wasn’t even sure how to get back to her room. I worried I would miss everything.

A nurse checked on me at one point, looking past the monitors and charts to catch my eye. I still remember her advice like it was yesterday. It was simple, direct, and focused entirely on the journey:

“Enjoy the ride,” she told me. Then added, “It goes quick.”

The Survival Years

I think of those six words every so often. I think about how much time we spent back then worrying about simply getting through the day. How were we going to survive the endless cycle of diapers, baby formula, and late-night feedings? Once we scraped through that, how were we going to survive the battle of potty training? The days felt impossibly long, but somehow, we made it through.

Enjoy the ride.

White-Knuckling the Passenger Door

A few years down the road, a whole new wave of panic set in when the kids reached driving age. We worried endlessly about hand position, blind spots, and bad weather. But the kids? They took to the wheel like they’d been born for it. Mom and Dad were white-knuckling the passenger door, frightened half to death, while they were in absolute heaven—keys in hand, tasting their first real slice of freedom.

Buckle yourself in and enjoy the ride.

The Silence

Now, the house has grown quiet. The constant noise, the scattered shoes, and the daily chaos have all cleared out. The kids have moved on to build their own lives, though they come back to visit every once in a while.

Standing in the kitchen recently, hearing them tell us how much they love and miss us, that nurse’s voice comes right back into focus. We rarely realize we’re living through “the good old days” while we’re right in the thick of them.

What about you? What’s a memory from another era of your life that you find yourself returning to? Let’s talk in the comments.