I’m typing this with grease-stained hands while watching One Tree Hill (I may actually get through an entire season in one weekend. Wow.)

And actually, my hands actually look better now than they did earlier…

But today (or I guess I should say “yesterday” since I’m posting this today), I was working on my newly bought car. Her name’s Cupcake.

She may be newly bought, but she’s not new. She’s been in the family for four years, and has been driven around for twenty-one, almost twenty-two years. She’s got no AC (as of now), some new speakers my sister installed last Christmas, and a piece of her hood is hanging by a screw due to a hit-and-run incident that happened last summer. The screw was my Pa’s way of fixing it. We may need to tighten it a little…

The AUX cord works just fine. So does the CD player (make me mixtapes, please!).

I’ve had friends tease me and my sister about Cupcake, how old she looks and is. But she’s one unique car with a whole bunch of memories.

She’s taken me, my sister, and Patsy to Tybee Island from Chattanooga and back. She got Bria and I to The Rocket Summer concert this past March. She was my reliable transportation the summer after my senior year of college when I had to nanny a set of twins, and live at my grandparents’ house by myself. She got me, my sister, and Bria to Atlanta for Warped Tour, and Chattanooga for the Fourth of July this year.

I’ve done my fair share of complaining about Cupcake. But she’s been good to me and my family ever since we’ve had her. And I hope, now that she’s officially mine, I’ll be able to be good to her, and take care of her better than I probably did for the past four years.

I expect problems; all cars have them. But she’s awesome. And I’m beginning to realize it the more I work on her.

And she’ll be even more awesome after she gets some new brakes! The adventure continues today because I bought the wrong car part, and I need to finish fixing Cupcake so she’s ready to roll for a road trip next weekend (YAY FOR VACATION).

Fixing my car has really been an experience for me though, because if you would have told the high school me, or even the freshman or sophomore college me that I’d spend basically a whole Saturday trying to fix my car brakes i.e. hands covered in sticky black grease, constantly sweating because of the heat, realizing that I need to go back to AutoZone to return and buy more car parts…I would have probably laughed in your face.

But learning how to fix her has been a really cool experience. Yes, frustrating and messy at times, but cool. I never thought I’d say or type something like that.

Now, just because I say this, doesn’t mean I’m gonna become a car mechanic one day haha. But, it’s just made me realize how much things change; how much I have changed.

And change is exciting and scary at the same time. But I feel like, in the place where I’m at, learning to embrace change is crucial. I probably should have learned this earlier, like while I was in college.  More and more though, change is being revealed to me, in my life, and in the lives of others, and it’s made me realize that I need to live in the here and now.

Like this morning. It was going to be typical – get up, go to church, come back and nap and eat, and then go on resting on the day of rest. Oh wait, and fixing my car.

But things change – the brakes on your sister’s car feel weird on the way to church, & you haven’t even made it out of the neighborhood yet. A friend calls after falling off her bike, and is in need of First Aid. After being released from her cage, your little sister’s pet rabbit flies upstairs to forbidden territory i.e. your bedroom, and you and your sister have to catch her. 

Things happen. Change happens. Change can be good, bad, frustrating, inconvenient, inspiring, encouraging. And I am learning to embrace it all.

Embracing change means embracing the present.

So as we rode our bikes to go help our friend, I tried embracing the moment, and taking in the present. It wasn’t a major event, but it was nice to stop and just be for a little. 

Sure, we still have to figure out what we’re gonna do for church, and I’m tempted to try to think about what’s going to happen after church with fixing Cupcake, and cleaning my room, and trying to get ready for this week.

But all those plans I make now could also change. It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t think ahead; it just means I need to be aware and prepared for change, and stop fussing about whether my plans will happen or not.

The more aware I am of change, and how quickly it can occur, the more I’ll appreciate the present moment I’m in. As much as there are things that stay constant in life – and there aren’t many things like that – most things change. And we need to really grasp those things and those moments and those people before change happens.

#JustStartWriting

❤ Mishy