Does every adverse event have portent? Are we to interpret them as harbingers? I have had a daisy chain of bad luck and bad news today. I want to walk it off. I want to shed it and reframe the day with a positive outlook forward and not dwell on the crap that transpired today. Does it matter what happened? Not really. It is nothing devastating or permanent. What happened today was the equivalent to someone throwing a brick through the front windshield of your car. Shocking, terrifying, unexpected and it leaves you with a mess to clean up and a window to fix. And who has time for that kind of chore? Who has the adaptability to absorb such tasks in a schedule already packed to the nines? But I face a work week, one of the busiest and most compact three day work weeks, with only partial use of my right hand. I cannot use my thumb due to a deep puncture to the pad of the finger. Part of the pulp of that pad was outside my finger like someone had used a rug hook on it. A tiny but deep hole, too small to suture but large enough to continue bleeding with any direct pressure. Then later, while on a cross town excursion to the main downtown library to get references for the 5th grade essay on the Sojourner Mars rover, I think it is such a glorious day that we should drive with the windows down and the sun roof open. I hit the button to lower the passenger window and instead, the motor in the door attempts to eject the entire window from the car door frame. The window now sits, pivoted like a fish gill. It won’t lower and it cannot be pushed down. Did I mention my car has a fabulous “cover everything” warranty? Did I also mention that all warranty work has to be done in Jacksonville? So, carless for the week of Thanksgiving…..and I have to figure out how to get the car TO Jacksonville without the window flying away. Oh, to have the service department bring me a loaner and take my car back would be Cinderella’s dream.
I am a fiercely independent person, I can let myself get shaken to the quick, brutally reminded of how powerless life can be, albeit on a microscale. Today was a healthy psychological reminder that I cannot control time or space. I am not magical or supernatural.
And it could have been far worse. I could have cut my thumb so deeply that I injured the tendon that controlled movement. The window in my car could have separated from my car like a Space Shuttle fuel tank only to smash into some other person’s car. All in all, while I may be shaken, I am fortunate.
Life is odd and crazy, full of unexpected twists and opportunities. We can get stuck on that which causes us to flounder or we can marvel at our good fortune to have avoided a far worse fate. And with my imagination, I can conjure far bleaker, destructive, disabling outcomes. A funkified car window and a thumb that throbs like an animated body part in Roger Rabbit are manageable. I am thankful for a life that is never dull. And what did I say a few days ago? Is someone trying to tell me NO!…I could mistake this for a poor omen and cower….but, honestly it just pisses me off. This won’t deter me. I know where I am headed and I can maneuver around obstacles. I can change my trajectories. I may not be able the guarantee my arrival time but I can guarantee that I will get there. No doubt.