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I had a small, intensely grateful, pay-it-forward sort of moment today. One of those moments you don’t really see coming but looking back you know must have been inevitable all along. This one was a solid 15 years in the making, and it might take another 15 years to even see any real good come of it.
My moment of gratitude? A massively flat tire. 

A “thonk-thonk-thonk-whatinthe-HELL-is-that-godAWFUL-noise,” kind of flat tire. 

An, “I’m on the way to pick up the kids, and then I have to drop off the dessert for the event, and I don’t think I can drive on this and I don’t know how I’m gonna make this work,” kind of flat tire.

But before I could reach the gratitude I had to deliver the dessert. (Because priorities. Food is always a priority.) So I called Baby Boy and asked to borrow his car. Piling in with Monster and Beast and an armload of goodies, I turn on the car only to see the low tire pressure warning light pop on. 

And stay on. 

Out again, check the tires- looks okay, and I’m running late now, so we’re gonna risk it (because I KNOW how to change a tire. It's been a while, but it's just like riding a bike, right? I just hope he has a spare…)

But what a sick cosmic joke: a flatter-than-flat, followed immediately by a pressure warning? Two different cars, at the same time?

The pay-it-forward part was that finally, a decade and a half after learning how to change a flat tire, I got to put the knowledge to good use. I got to teach my girls not only how to change a tire, but that even if they didn’t know how, they have the brainpower (and brawn) to figure it out anyway.

The gratitude part came from having the knowledge in the first place, thanks to my hubby back in our dating days (who taught me to drive, and change a tire, and to whom I taught that the belt on your alternator must be tight or you’ll just go through one a day for a week before you finally break down and spend the money and go to a mechanic… but I digress.)

I found gratitude in having access to another vehicle so I could follow through on my commitments. And gratitude in having the financial ability to replace said flat tire the following day.

But most of all, I found gratitude in being able to handle those pressure warnings. It’s a simple thing that would have reduced me to tears a year ago, leaving me feeling as deflated as that damned tube of rubber. It’s trivial in the grand scheme of life- but I’m grateful for it nonetheless.


And in 15 years (because that’s how long it will be before I let my children behind the wheel of a car), hopefully, my girls will remember today's lesson- that they too can handle life’s many pressures. 
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