14. Just In Time

Do you believe in destiny; that there is hidden power believed to control what will happen to you in the future or events that will necessarily happen to you in the future – that your life path is determined by a divine hand?

I Googled what people, mostly famous people, have defined as destiny. Clearly, most believe that we can determine our own destiny; that we can, by our choice and decision, determine the path of our lives. If that’s true, I wonder if there’s a timeline, an age when we look at our lives and utter, “now, I will change the outcome of my life.” There seem to be many factors involved with this decision; the circumstances we find ourselves in, the people with whom we surround ourselves, our families, our education. As I look behind me, I wonder if I missed an age; maybe I could have re-shaped much of my life if I had made a destiny-change when I was 20? But, then, how can you make a change in your destiny if you don’t know what it is? What are any of us destined to become? The possibilities are endless.

This little discussion is becoming far too existential for me. Yet I will say that I’m far enough along in my life; I can see the path that brought me here, writing to you right now. It’s a wide road I’ve taken, like a highway with exits along the way, even rest stops or what my lovely friends in Scotland call laybys. By choice, or maybe a circumstance beyond my control, I would swerve from side to side on this Life Highway, crashing into others, bruising myself, or worse yet, relinquishing the “driving” to my family or people I wanted to impress. There were times I imagined I was headed nowhere, to no specific time or place, just bouncing off one experience to another, letting life do its thing, and I would somehow make the necessary accommodations. 

Before taking on this writing gig, I thought seriously about becoming a genealogist. I was and remain interested in history, not only in world events but the people who lived through history, how events affected their destinies. For example, the clans in Scotland’s highlands were a ferocious lot, and when they weren’t fighting each other, they were a force to be reckoned with – and a thorn in the British crown’s royal arse. By the mid-1700s, the British had had enough with Scots and their rebellious behavior and stopped the clan system in its tracks. My great-great-grandparents suffered from the resulting ethnic cleansing, better known as the Highland Clearances. My ancestors had a deed title to their property “as long as the heather grows and water runs.” The heather still grows, and the water still runs, but the crown took the land and the home of my family, and by the mid-1800s, my family had immigrated to Canada and the Western United States to rebuild. Was it destiny that brought them here to forge the American West?

I’m not satisfied believing I am here by chance, resulting from a random meeting of two people who got married, lived a random-chance-led life, and by some random DNA code, I became who I am today. For if that is all I am, a mere blip of circumstance, or one who lacked the fortitude to chart my own course, then everything I have written here and will write has no meaning. Call me crazy, call me delusional, but I was destined to be here, writing to you. All the bumps and bruises, successes, failures, the ups, and the downs, the exits I would take, still brought me to this place and time. It’s only by looking over my shoulder do I see the path I’ve been on; it’s only at this moment – the present – do I see clearly and my future is seen through the thinly-veiled lens of hope. 

After my failed attempt at becoming a hippie in Colorado’s mountains, I returned home to my parent’s home in Winnetka. I went from one job to another until I was accepted as a flight attendant for Continental Airlines. I was assigned to Houston, Texas, after the rigorous 6-week training where I learned how to evacuate a plane in less than 90 seconds and, dressed in my flight uniform of hotpants and knee-high platform boots, learned to serve the window seat passenger appropriately. Needing a place to live, I  welcomed the invitation to share an apartment with another flight attendant, Marcy, who held a welcoming party for me. I was nervous about attending the party without knowing a soul, and I barely knew Marcy. My long-held social insecurities were running amok as I approached the apartment. I could hear loud, happy voices and even louder music. Why did I have to go through this withering social exchange?  The apartment door was open, and I took a tentative few steps. I was greeted by a handsome, tanned, and blonde guy who said, “Hey, you must be Bonnie.” To my shock, he grabbed me by my waist, pulled me toward him, and boom! He planted a kiss full on my lips. I can’t say I was overly impressed at the time, and I obviously didn’t know it then, but this bold and impetuous man, named Daulton, would become my future husband. We dated for almost 2 years. We were inseparable. Then the unexpected happened. I was among thousands of airline employees furloughed due to a middle east oil embargo that left the US in a fuel crisis. For reasons I can’t remember, I left Houston and returned to my parents (again), where my insecurities were born, nurtured, and resurrected. 

On a particularly unsettling day with my parents, I drove to the local mall, entering the Sears store. There, right at the front door, right in my path, was a display of Bibles. These were not the Bibles that sat dusty on the shelves of my parent’s home. These were a new translation: The Living Bible. To this day, I marvel at my actions. I picked up one of those Bibles, thumbed through a few pages, walked to the check out counter, and bought the thing. I made a mistake, or so I thought at the time, of mentioning this odd purchase to my sister-in-law, who immediately provided me a stack of Christian books. I let out a groan as I wasn’t looking for any sappy platitudes. Some days later, I looked through that stack and pulled out a book titled The Becomers. That book changed my life because it promised, like Groucho Marx (Google him) if I said the magic words, my life would be changed for the better; I would become a new person. Surely, there was no one more than I who wanted a new beginning, a new life. I’m not sure fully understood what I committed to, but I was given a Life Handbook that gave me hope and direction. Over the years, my faith journey would be marked by doubts, questions, assurances, and even confusion. My understanding of faith would evolve, but God, The Light who shined through the shadows, never faltered; God was and is a Constant. He probably had to wait on me longer than he might have preferred, but he stayed. He stayed and saved my life.