Watch for the signals

It wasn’t it.

It looked the same.

It came at the same time.

But, it was the wrong bus.

A couple days a week I walk my sixth-grade daughter to the school bus. It’s always dark – that’s the excuse I give her. That’s the one she lets me think she believes.

The truth it’s one of the few remaining ways  I can spend time with her.

She’s growing up fast. She knows too much. Like it or not, or more frighteningly, ready or not she’s super independent.

She doesn’t  really need good ole’ dad for much.

The routine is simple. I set a few alarms – we both are easily distracted – when the alarm sounds we hustle out the door so we can leave and have time to spare at the bus stop about eight minutes away with a slow walk.

We chill on the edge of the curb or a step or whatever for a few minutes. We can see the bus a few blocks away, so there’s plenty of time to walk 20 feet to the bus.

Every once in a while, I fib and tell her it’s coming.

This morning, we didn’t see it coming. It pulled up from a side street and into the very same spot.

Dakota hustled to the bus. I walked away. 

She screams, “Dad, Dad.”
I turn around and she’s lingering outside the bus. There are no red lights. The stop sign is not extended

“It’s not the right bus. It’s not my route,” she explained.

My daughter knew instantly the bus driver was different and asked if she was the sub.

The driver wasn’t.

It was a completely different bus. 

I don’t know if she looked at the bus number, either way she knew.

Like clockwork, the right bus, the regular driver, comes zooming up the street we see it coming, 

Same routine, she says bye, and walks casually to the bus.

Walking back it struck me. That’s kinda how it is in life.

My daughter ran to the bus from emotion. It came out of nowhere, the suddenness got her out of the routine.

Yet, she didn’t just run up the steps and plop down. She asked questions. She used her brain. She had experience to know the difference.

A lot of things seem right. There are a number of right opportunities at the surface.

It can be a new job. A new relationship. How we spend our money or why we get sucked into it.

Maybe it’s ignorance. Maybe it’s the emotion of it wanting to be the right thing we forget.

It’s usually emotion, at least partly. It’s so exciting we can’t  slow down or won’t  slow down to see the way the wind is blowing.

So my friend, like my daughter did, at least this time.

Watch for the stop sign and ask questions.

Always ask questions.