Still In The Car

We came to Arizona to visit before we moved here. We flew in late and there was a mess up with our rental car, and by the time we were trying to leave the garage it was close to 2am.

We were tired. The kind of tired where everything feels a little harder than it should. Tim driving, three in the back, me in the passenger seat trying to keep things moving.

We finally get to the exit and the attendant says, “Can I see Rick’s driver’s license?”

And Tim says, “Who the FUCK is Rick?”

All six eyes in the backseat go wide. Tim doesn’t lose his cool—and he definitely doesn’t swear at people.

I lean over, trying to figure out what’s going on, and realize they’ve given us the wrong car. We loop back, get it sorted, and when we finally pull out into the night, the tension just… breaks.

We’re laughing. All of us. The kind of laughing that only comes after something goes slightly off the rails.

Rick has been part of the family ever since.

Who the fuck is Rick? comes up more often than you might imagine.

On that same trip, we were driving through Tempe and saw a crowd gathered in a park. We wondered what we were missing. I googled it—InningsFest. A concert to kick off spring training.

I made a mental note.

Now we live here. And we go every year.

This year, we went all three days. By the end we were exhausted, but that first night—we were on fresh legs. Ready for fun. Tim and I had drinks in hand, sitting in our seats, settling in.

Marcus Mumford and his sons—not his sons, but you know how bands go—were headlining.

They said their new album had dropped that day and played a few songs from it.

It’s been on repeat for me ever since.

And then this week, something caught.

Not even my favorite song. Just a line.

“Is this all there is?”

And then the response:

“What do you mean, is this not enough for you?”

And I just sat there.

Because I think that’s the question that shows up at some point, whether we say it out loud or not.

You build a life.

You work. You show up. You take care of people. You move things forward.

And then you arrive somewhere—maybe somewhere you’ve been trying to get to for a long time—and you look around and think:

Wait. This?

Is this it?

And almost immediately:

Shouldn’t this be enough?

Why doesn’t it feel like enough?

What am I missing?

What comes next?

And then the other voice:

What do you mean, is this not enough for you?

And that one lands too.

Because it is enough.

Or it should be.

Or we’ve been told it should be.

And so you sit there, kind of suspended between the two.

Grateful. And restless.

Satisfied. And still searching.

Fully here. And wondering if there’s more.

I don’t think the answer is a clean one.

I don’t think it’s:

yes, this is all there is

or

no, there’s something more waiting

I think it’s something quieter than that.

Something more like:

You are here.

This life you’ve built—the people, the work, the rhythms—that’s real. That matters.

And also… something in you is asking to be noticed again.

Not replaced.

Not reinvented.

Just… noticed.

Maybe the question isn’t:

Is this all there is?

Maybe it’s:

What is here now that I haven’t fully seen yet?

What part of me is still in the car?

Where are we, really?

Because the car is still moving.

The people are still here.

The story didn’t end when you got to this place—it just… changed shape.

And maybe, before we rush toward whatever is next, we just:

look around

notice who’s with us

take in where we are

and let that be enough for a minute

even if it doesn’t answer the question completely