A neighbor down the street has been busy for the last month or so easing his son into what is perhaps the biggest step toward adulthood that a young person can take—getting a driver’s license.

It’s been rough going, the father told me. And maybe a little disappointing, too. Because where his son has been the epitome of intelligence, responsibility, and maturity before, he is now managed to transform himself into a negligent, childish idiot. His words, not mine. Though I do understand what he’s feeling. My father was like that when he taught me how to drive.

The driver’s license is an amazing thing. We don’t have many rites of passage in our culture. There are few elaborate ceremonies to mark the going out of Child and the coming in of Adult. That laminated piece of paper with our picture and vital statistics is as close as we get.

I’ve seen the two of them in the evenings, driving up and down the road with varying degrees of success. The boy always has a look of sheer joy plastered on his face. The father looks as though he is sharing a ride with the Angel of Death. It’s quite comical, really. Until I pause to think that in ten years or so, I’ll be doing the same thing.

The behind-the-wheel part of his son’s education is being supplemented by a little classroom work, too. His father has come up with what he calls the Rules Of The Road. Principles that, if heeded, will keep his son both out of trouble and the hospital.

The Rules are taped to the steering wheel of the battered Ford truck that will soon become his son’s primary mode of transportation. They are also hanging from the refrigerator in the kitchen. And tacked onto the wall beside his bed. There are also pop quizzes.

I gave my own pop quiz to the boy yesterday. Tell me the five rules, I said. He rattled them off like a soldier relaying his orders:

“Be safe because there’s a lot of danger. Keep it slow because there’s always a speed limit. Pay attention because you could wreck and end up in the woods. Check your mirrors because you should always be mindful. Watch for signs because if you don’t obey, you’ll end up in front of the judge. Don’t be impaired because you should always drive at your best. And enjoy the ride,” he said.

This is serious stuff. And I think it’s working.

This boy may not be able to parallel park and will likely never be able to find third gear, but he will follow The Rules. A plus for him, I think. Because following them won’t just make him successful on the road. It’ll make him successful in life, too.

Take rule number one, for instance. Be safe. There is a lot of danger in life. Some of it sits and waits for us to stumble upon it, and some of it is out there trying to find us.

Or keeping it slow, rule number two. We’re always in a hurry, aren’t we? Always trying to get somewhere to do something so we can go to another somewhere to do something else. Better to slow down. We miss too much by rushing along.

What about paying attention? Good advice for the drivers around here, since there are a lot of country roads with potholes and ditches. Don’t watch where you’re going, and you’ll find yourself in the woods. Keep your mind on things that don’t really matter in life, and you’ll likely find yourself in the woods, too.

Checking your mirrors is also important. Since we tend to associate with those whom we share common traits and values, the friends we have and the company we keep are mirrors for ourselves. So, too, are our children. They come into this world as a blank slate, and for the first years parents are the ones who hold the chalk. What they become is often our own self-portrait, just miniaturized.

And as there are plenty of signs on the road—Stop, Yield, Merge—that if disobeyed will and you in front of a judge. But there are plenty in life, too. Warning us, helping us, keeping us safe. Heed them and all will be well. A good thing to keep in mind, since we’ll all have to stand in front of the Judge one day.

Driving while impaired is never a good idea. When driving, that means no alcohol or drugs. When living, that means no hate and fear. Because those things impair us, too.

And then there was rule number seven: enjoy the ride. Put there by his father because he wanted to end things on a high note, and put here by me for the same reason. Because following The Rules isn’t designed to make things less fun, but to make us more happy.

Enjoying the ride is the boy’s favorite rule, by the way.

Mine, too.

You don’t expect one of life’s biggest lessons to come when you sit down on the sofa. But I guess that’s when most of them come—when they’re unexpected.

Long day at work. Much to do and get done that, thankfully, did. My reward? Thirty minutes on the sofa with a good book (has anyone read Walden since high school? Trust me, it’s better the second time around). With dinner consumed and family gathered, I grabbed my book, turned around, and sat.

And as I did, I grunted.

It was a low grunt, more of an “Aaah” than an “Oooh”, but the proper pronunciation didn’t matter. I had never made a sound like that before, and it bothered me.

My children kept playing, oblivious to the noise I had just made. My wife, however, did offer a sideways glance from the recliner beside me. What was that? the look said. I ignored her because I didn’t have an answer.

I wasn’t tired, wasn’t sore, and wasn’t sick. I was just ready to sit down for a while. Nothing more than that.

Or was there?

The fact that I am thirty-six going on forty crossed my mind. I normally don’t consider my age, really. How I feel physically has always been more important than any number. Lately, however, my thoughts have drifted once or twice to the fact that I may very well be nearing the halfway point of my life. It’s a point that was driven home by a recent email from a high school classmate: “Can you believe it’s been nineteen years?” she said. No, I couldn’t. I knew it’d been a while, but I didn’t know it had been that long.

Time is an elusive thing. It creeps while we watch over it, yet seems to speed by when we have other things on our minds. Our days, too, can easily be transformed from individual periods of twenty-four hours to one lump of events that have no distinct beginning or end. Don’t pay attention to your life, and things tend to unravel. That’s how you can be changing your children’s diapers one day and attending their wedding the next. Or how nineteen years of post-high school life can seem like mere months.

I suppose that the realities of life dictate that at some point certain things begin to happen. Experience breeds truthfulness, a scraping away of the illusions that you’ve spent years carefully crafting for yourself. You take stock, a mental inventory of where you’ve been and where you happen to be going. Not where you want to be going, mind you. Where you are. And it’s only when you figure out where you are that you can figure out where you want to go.

That was what my grunt was all about. It was a signal, whether given by God or my own physiology, that the clock that keeps the time of my life never runs slow. That it keeps chiming whether I hear it or not.

I see my children and their abundant energy, their unquenchable desire for much and more. They play and wonder and explore without tiring, unlike me. I honor that part of them. I encourage it. But I have found a peace in where I am, and do not envy them.

I will take my grunts instead. I consider them to be a preamble of sorts rather than a coda; a beginning rather than an end. And though there is still plenty of play left in me, I will be sure to take some extra time to sit. I will let my children “Oooh” at life and relish in what they will one day know. And I will let myself “Aaah” and relish in what I never will.