Missed Opportunities

Sometimes I wonder about missed opportunities. And I wonder just how many I’ve missed.

I was driving back to school today and it was a quiet drive. With my traveling companions “Major and Sophie” strapped in the passenger seat next to me, we just drove. I often use my lonely two hour drives as impressive spill sessions. I talk and I pray. I say whatever is on my heart, on my mind. Whatever words I’ve been burning to say have complete safety inside of my little moving box. But today the drive was quiet. I had little to say and despite the profound things that sometimes come from my stuffed bears, their beaded eyes merely stared.

Needless to say, it made me impressively more observant of my surroundings. I noticed the guy in the truck ahead of me wave goodbye as I turned after following him for 20 miles. I noticed the seven dead deer, 4 dead cats, and single dead chicken looking creature. I noticed the tractor plowing his field as the day turned to dusk.

And I noticed the building... “Bruce’s Tack Box”. A little shop stuck on a delta of land between two intersecting roads. As near as anyone could tell, it was a little everything shop and it always intrigued me. For as long as I’ve been driving to Spring Arbor, it has been on my route. I pass it every time I go home and every time I come back...for the last three years. And every time I read the words I vow that some day I’m going to stop and visit. But I never did. I always was eager to get home, had to get back for work, needed to finish homework, and the list went on.

That visit would never come. My intrigue by this little awkwardly-placed country store would never be satisfied. Because today as I drove past I saw a realtor’s “for sale” sign out front and two red “closed” signs in the dirty empty windows. “Bruce’s Tack Box” was just a hollow building. I had missed my chance.

It seems harmless enough. It was just a store; it was just a road; I wouldn’t have bought anything; it probably wasn’t that impressive; it might have been a waste of time. Or it might not have. What about all the other things I keep claiming I’m going to do? How many more excuses will I create before yet another opportunity passes be by? Bruce’s Tack Box probably won’t make a difference in the long run...but how do I not know that the next one will? What opportunities am I being called to notice? And which one’s will I not pay any head until there is a “for sale” sign out front with red “closed” signs in dirty empty windows?