I
haven’t made friends with the lady whose suffering I caused by taking her
parking spot yet. See, my first facetious
thought was “a car “full” of groceries? Well now!! Are we talking a Geo Metro or a Hummer, here?” The car that
now fills that spot every day is a Suburban. Ok, ok. Well my
car could catch fire the next time it overheats so I win, lady. I should park there next time and leave
a note that says “Couldn’t risk overheating by driving 10 more feet to the
overflow. Have a nice day.”
Among
my growing list of notable setbacks this summer is the sudden dilapidation of
my faithful Elaine. Her health
faltered one day and it’s been a noisy, downhill descent ever since, topped off
one weekend by my dad walking inside and saying, “Well, put it this way. You
might want to limit the valuables you keep in your car to ones you can take out
fast. Like… inside your purse.” So
by the way, I know your passenger door won’t open again and it shimmies at
70mph like it’s gonna fall apart… but now it could catch on fire because oil is
leaking onto the exhaust manifold.
But hey, the good news is that if it DOES burn to the ground, you will
get more money from insurance than you would if you sold it.
I asked, and throwing a match into the gas tank won’t count.
On
the way down the driveway back to Rocklin, I said, “Bye! Pray it doesn’t blow
up!” Dad: “Nope! I’ll pray it
does! Bye.”
I’ll
be honest, if I have to stand on the side of the road and watch her burn, I
will probably cry a bit. A lot of growth has happened behind that steering
wheel, which has also taken a lot of frustrated punches, heard a lot of
prayers, one-sided conversations, really bad voice lesson practice, and my
worst cussing. I’ve slid into that seat and thanked God many times for that car
though. May I never stop
appreciating the freedom provided by having my own wheels.
10:00pm.
It’s a cool, breezy night and I am restruck by a dormant dream from years
ago. It came back full force and I
found myself up until early in the morning researching nannying jobs
overseas. The desire to travel and
GO somewhere, see MORE, has been driving me so crazy that I’m now losing sleep
over it. Having no internet in my
apartment is not the good thing I thought it would be- I should have known I
would find a sweet spot in my bathroom that provides just enough connection to
slowly gain information on living in Ireland, France, Italy or Australia… so
here I am at 1:30 in the morning, perched on the toilet seat and balancing my
laptop at the perfect angle off the windowsill to catch two bars of wifi. I’d regain my sanity while waiting for
a page to load, tell myself I was crazy and decide to go to bed- when the page
would load and I’d be off to the races all over again.
I’ve
gotten serious inquiries from some families, and there’s no question it is
something I want to do. In a wacky, silly part of my mind I’m afraid that if I
wait too long, I’ll meet someone (aka a man), my
plans will get skewed by emotions, and the desire will come back to haunt me
years later when I'm tied down by such things as money and children. Hahahahahahahahahaha.
NOW’S THE TIME! GO WHILE I STILL HAVE THE FREEDOM! GO GO GO GO GO GO GOOOOO! Be
gone! See Ireland. See France. Insert rhyme with underpants. Wait what?
What
a lesson in trust this summer has been.
Now that I’m free and “real life” is beginning, I’m finding that I have
to decide what my dreams really are, and what steps I’m going to physically
take to make them happen. I’m the
type to hold my cards close to my chest if I’m not sure I can play them
perfectly. Yay perfectionism and
fear of failure!
Also,
be careful what you pray for. I asked God at the beginning of the summer to
filter out parts of me that held me back or were not pleasing to Him. Thus began the most frustrating month
of my life. Yikes.
Also,
I leave you with this question.
What if the hokey pokey really is what it’s all about?
