The day started off better than most and I was feeling happy and fulfilled until.....the lion roared.
It is difficult to set boundaries. I hate dealing with the confusion of when to be tough and when it's not as big a deal as I am making it. I do understand how important boundaries are, and I am trying.
So I go "all-quiet" and distance myself from the situation while nursing the continual wound that keeps getting reopened with too much regularity. In an effort to get further away, I text my daughter and ask if she possibly needs me for babysitting any earlier. How awesome to find out that she was already on her way to me to go on a ride to Salem for her work.
I quickly got ready and walked outside to the car where she was feeding the baby. Off we went down I-205 South to Salem. Weather was rainy but the traffic was not so bad. We hit our exit and were just a block away from our intended destination when we entered the left-hand turn lane with traffic signal. We had a car waiting at the light in front of us and just as we neared the car ahead, another car jumped into the turn lane....well, actually they jumped smacked into my daughter's car! Metal hit metal with the quick sound of fingernails on a chalkboard. We had been hit!
My daughter saw them from the corner of her eye coming into us and reacted so I reacted and braced myself, not sure where it was coming from but expecting a hit. It felt like a hit but it looked like a scrape down the passenger side of the car and ripped the side of the tire too. Not really so bad with the damage. Nothing Jerry's Custom Paint couldn't handle!
My daughter, however, was experiencing her first auto accident with the baby in the car. She was clearly anxious and needed to park quickly to check on things. In the meantime, we were also considering how we each felt. I immediately felt it in my low back, I think because I braced for it. It took my daughter just a bit longer to begin to feel it up her back, down her arm....plus she was still trying to get her composure and recover from the anxiety of it all. For all that she had been through in a quick, hot minute, she handled herself like a champ.
Later, as I walked through Fred Meyers, I realized that my kneecap also felt odd and painful. All of the insurance info was properly collected and contact made to insurance companies. The physical hurts of the day will be taken care of in due time.
Why do I tell you this personal story?
Because all of the things that happened today could happen on any normal day. These are the every day blips of life. We get up and we just go from one blip to another and we forget to weigh the importance of each decision, each blip. We hurt others, we break things, we get anxious, we get hurt, we worry.
The day could have turned out a whole lot different. The accident could have been a whole lot worse.
I guess as I review the day on paper, I wonder why we aren't more concerned about how we treat others? How quickly things can change and there is no chance for making it right; no time for speaking those unsaid words that we keep pent up inside.
Why keep them pent up? Why is it so difficult to let the guard down and love others? Exactly how long do we think we have on this earth? Let that love flow. Give it away! Our days are numbered, though we do not know the count.
I have loved and I have lost. I have lived and I have felt dead. This is one thing I know for sure:
LOVE WINS.
There is nothing, no nothing, that can overcome love. As I have said before and will say many more times, I am sure....I only believe in unconditional love. Love that has the word "if" in it is a contract; an agreement. The word "if" nullifies unconditional.
Don't leave the important people in your life in the dark. Everyone needs genuine love; the kind that is steady as a rock. The unconditional kind. Love breathes life. At least, that's what I believe.
What are you doing today to make this year different?
I don't want to zone-out. I want to zoom-in.
I don't want to fight for the couch. I want to fight for my life.
What are YOU doing today?
#Real Gurl Life