Common History

Preface: My favorite adverb is "so".  It begins just about my every thought.  Structurally it carries little or no merit the way I use it in a sentence, but what can I say, we have comfort food, we have comfort words.  "So" is mine.

So,

to begin, there is an actual road.  It starts as a tributary of a small town with one name, and it ends after many twists and turns in the middle of nowhere with a different name.  Over the course of this ten-point-something miles of road, the road changes names precisely four times.  You can imagine the challenges this poses for any driver foolish enough to rely on GPS.

My road is not conveniently located, but somehow I find myself driving down it more often than I ever would have expected.  From the first time (hopelessly lost in the snow, sometime after midnight) to the most recent (maybe a month ago on the way to the metronorth station), the road leaves me with enough time and space to consider what has passed in my life since the last time I came its way.

Of course there are many stories, but my wheres, whens, and whys are not really all that important.  What is important is that we all have these spots.  We come back to them, reflect where we were in our own lives the last time we were there, wonder if all the changes were for the better, assume that they must have been, and continue on toward the future.

In a way, we measure the passage of time by these check-ins.  They are not only places, though.  Maybe they are books or art or music or food.  Smartphones now let you check-in when you go somewhere, but that's only the beginning of any story.  What you do, what you see, what you feel, what you hear, what you taste, what you smell; these link you to a place in time.

So,
this is the beginning of finding those check-ins.  The status updates of your life that actually make you feel that you are progressing, and, more importantly, that you are progressing for the better.