Some time ago I was walking in my neighbourhood and it dawned on me that in many respects my life has been very much like the experience of going through a car wash. You remember the old, automated car washes that we used to drive through? Let me explain what I mean.
Today’s car washes are sophisticated affairs. Virtually nothing actually touches your vehicle while you drive through. The older versions, however, were more “interactive” in a sense.
I remember waiting for the conveyor belt mechanism to attach to the front tire and then jerk my car forward into the washing booth. Once inside the booth, there would be another pause while lights and machines switched on. At that point I wondered if my car was suddenly stuck and could not move forward. Then the water jets turned on to remove the larger debris from the car. Then followed a violent push forward and brush arms loaded with soap lowered onto the sides, roof and hood of my vehicle. The violent motion of these brushes shook the car. Would my antenna be ripped right off the hood? Then followed the loudness of the water jets as they rinsed the soap from the car. Would the windshield hold or would it shatter and allow the water to flood the car’s interior? As the car moved forward, the drying blowers took over with an even greater, deafening loudness. Finally the wax buffing brushes worked the body of the car. Sometimes they looked damaged and I feared that they would scratch the car’s paint job. Last, I worried about not being pushed out of the booth in time before the vehicle behind me started to move. It was always a relief to emerge from the car wash intact and unscathed. The ordeal was finally over!*
The stages of life that we go through are not unlike the stages of a classic car wash. While we watch with a kind of helplessness, people and events work to shape our lives from the outside in. At any stage of our development, our experiences are all engrossing and we can focus on little else. In time, one stage of our education morphs into the next, but it is rarely a gentle transition. Often we are jerked forward violently into the next phase of learning. And because we do not know the number of stages we are supposed to experience, there is always fear and apprehension.
When will it end? Is there a time when we can say that the process is complete?
When you are young you are expected to be a cooperative, passive learner. Your morals, opinions, beliefs and behaviours are shaped by parents, institutions and peers. At first everything is applied “externally.” You have no frame of reference by which to compare and analyze situations and events carefully. You collect experiences and traumas but do not know how to interpret them. The social mores and beliefs that guide you are largely dictated to you so that you fit into society without complaining. You long for a time to just stop and reflect on things but you feel helpless —everything just moves too quickly.
Eventually you reach a point where you have the power to stop the process. You take time out to take stock of your life and make sense of things. Now you are a mature adult and you are not afraid to revisit experiences and reflect on relationships.
And when you do reflect on things, you are likely to find that, while on the outside you are a “clean, shiny vehicle,” —an upstanding member of your community— there is crud on the inside that has been with you from the first. Crud that was never acknowledged and left undisturbed.
To stretch the car wash metaphor even further, it is time to stop and “vacuum the inside.” It’s time to remove the things that are not you —the things you adopted only to please someone else.
Once the outside has been washed and once the inside has been vacuumed, you are “truly clean” and transformed into your true, authentic self. Now it’s time to hit the open road!
P.S. Sorry if this seems really far-fetched and no, I do not take drugs……..
*I don’t remember the film, but I think there is a scene where comedian Jim Carrey goes through an old style car wash in a convertible. His passenger is justifiably horrified and traumatized by the experience!