I can drive!!

My driver’s license was expired.

I kept putting off renewing it because the idea of going to the tag agency with five kids sounded horrible. It is also a rare day that my hair is fixed and I am ‘license picture ready.’ Spending time on the weekend to go also did not sound fun. I just kept delaying.

Over the weekend, Chris encouraged me to just go take care of it. Saturday morning I grudgingly got in the car and drove to the tag agency. I was so grumpy about it. As I complained in my head about the hassle of getting a new license, I began to think about how it felt 20 years ago to get my first license. I couldn’t get to the driver’s testing place fast enough or get that license in my hands quick enough. As soon as it was issued, I posed for a picture with my first license. The magnitude and meaning of that little piece of plastic was not lost on me.

Then I got older.

What was once overwhelmingly exciting became a hassle.

I forgot the magnitude and the meaning. It was just an ordinary, mundane thing in my wallet.

As I approached the tag agency last weekend, it all hit me again. I can drive!

It is an unbelievable privilege to not only drive, but to own a car and have the means to pay for insurance, gas, car seats. By world standards, I am in the minority. Of course, there are plenty of reasons many people do not drive by choice and for practical reasons. The point is not driving, but how easily the things that I was once was astounded by can become mundane. When I lose perspective of just how incredible the little and ordinary things in life truly are, excitement is often replaced by hassle.

I don’t want to live that way…I want to live in the excitement of seeing the beauty in the mundane.

I walked out of the tag agency and snapped a photo of me with my new driver’s license…because HELLO, I can drive!