Arriving & Becoming

He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.

—Psalm 23:3

My dad used to have one of those cars where you could plug in your destination and the woman’s voice would tell you when to turn and when to stop to get you there. And when you got there, she’d say, in this totally dramatic, slightly sexy, slow voice, “You. Have. Arriiiiiiived.” We burst out laughing the first time we heard it. We wanted her to say it again. We wanted to plug in more places, and then go to them, just so that she would tell us again that We. Have. Arrived. It was the greatest car in the world. You knew, cognitively, that she was a computer, and that she was only talking about arriving at the dry cleaner, but another part of you just melted when she said it. “Me? Me? I’ve arrived? Thank you! Say it again!”

I want to arrive. I want to get to wherever I’m going and stay there. That’s why I used to be such a ferocious planner of my life. But I’ve learned to just keep moving, keep walking, keep taking teeny tiny steps. In those teeny tiny steps and moments I become who I am. We don’t arrive. But we can become. And that’s the most hopeful thing I can think of.