They say the good Lord takes care of babies and fools. He certainly took care of one particular baby last weekend. Although some of us may not realize it, he used that baby to give us a gentle kick in the rear.
There are probably not too many people who don't by now know the story -- and haven't by now seen the video -- of the 4-year-old girl, Annabelle, who hopped on a bus at 3 a.m. in the pouring Philadelphia rain in search of a slushie at a convenience store, while her folks slept. She got dressed, put on rain boots, found a willing back door, found a bus stop, and even crossed a busy street in her slushie search. (Even at her young age, the girl was apparently taught some degree of self-sufficiency.)
"All I want is a slushie," she reportedly chanted while on the bus.
The story was quite the popular one on local and national news sites, probably because it had a happy ending in a sea of sad ones. The websites on which I read the story had plenty of headlines of incidents whose endings were not nearly as happy ... "Missing 5-year-old Virginia boy found dead in septic system," "Florida boy kills one brother, wounds another after food fight" and "Man stabs wife to death in front of daughter" -- one of seven children ages 3 to 15.
I'm with everyone else who has breathed a sigh of relief that something bad didn't happen to the girl; that she had a "guardian angel" in bus driver Harlin Jenifer, a father of three who stopped the bus and called police ... as well as the guy who flagged down the bus and helped Annabelle onto it.
But Annabelle's story is notable not just because it ended happily. It's notable because it did more for us adults than every self-help, "how to achieve success" book that ever made The New York Times best-seller list.
I'm 53 and am not nuts about the thought of taking a bus alone, even in the daytime. As much as I like cupcakes from a certain bakery, the chances that I'd get up at 3 in the morning and hop a bus to go buy one -- even if Little Rock buses did run at that time and the bakery was open -- would be fairly slim.
Ah, but what about all those goals for success I've been harboring? Goals that, ahem, could be said at this point to still be stuck in the "dream" stage because no action has been taken? Why haven't I set foot on that road to a slushie?
Annabelle's trek is a reminder to us grown-ups that if we want something badly enough, we should not let laziness, fear, discomfort or apathy prevent us from going to get it. Are we willing to get up at 3 a.m.? Start on our journey without knowing all the answers as to how we'll succeed in our mission? Endure discomfort, whether it's pouring rain or a crushing failure? Is it going to take a bump on the rear end at rock bottom to make us push past the sacrifices?
Having spent my childhood -- and the beginning of my adulthood -- as a timid nerd who was a bit too sheltered, I think back to the few instances in my life that I wanted something badly enough that I said "hardship and consequences be hanged."
One seems fairly silly now: Driving to a Rick James concert alone, in an ailing car, after failing to find the concert companion my mother preferred that I have. Another: re-enrolling in school as an older student to finish my degree, despite not knowing where the financing would come from beyond that initial summer class. (This, after 14 years of scaring myself out of re-enrolling in school after thinking about registration and parking.)
I'm willing to admit I need to muster the same determination to get a few other things I've said I want out of life. And I know I'm not alone.
Although there are no convenience stores of the franchise Annabelle sought in our neck of the woods, I hope the chain is even now shooting commercials starring Annabelle and getting her trust fund off to a good start. And I hope we all got the message she unwittingly sent us.
We all have a desired destination in our lives. We've all made some type of "All I want is" statement. We have to reassess our willingness to get up early in the morning and venture out alone -- in unfamiliar and intimidating territory -- to reach it.
All I want is email:
hwilliams@arkansasonline.com
Style on 04/05/2015