I have a "day off" today, because I have nothing to do that can't wait until tomorrow. I wait until Friday to limp my son's motorcycle into the shop for an estimate after some anonymous person backed into it and knocked it over, there are no scheduled get-togethers or breakfasts for today, I don't absolutely HAVE to go to the DMV, although it looms large in the near future, other people in the household are working today, so I don't even have to look busy, and there are plenty of clean underwear.
Life is good.
About the damaged motorcycle: these things happen. It is amazing, though, how expensive the damage will likely be, given the bike just fell over powered only by its own weight and gravity, but each and every little part of those motorcycles is very expensive. For example, a foot peg, like the kind you would rest your foot on while riding, can be $50, not counting the hardware to mount it. Really? Yes, really. Hell, the gas tank is $600, someone told me--and it is damaged in a way that it probably can't be repaired and repainted, not mentioning the fact that a repair would probably cost even more.
What is dismaying is that this make four incidents, now, between my son and his girlfriend, of motor vehicle mishaps in the last few months that are the fault of other people--and in all four of those cases those other people fled the scene. Apparently people just can't be bothered.
I have been thinking about Paula's poasts, and it resonates with something else I have been thinking about. Many things in our lives are not really very big or onerous, but they seem to be. Things in the future can easily loom large in an artificial way, sort of like having to go to the DMV next week. The only cure for that is to stop it. I have found that things I worry about in the future almost never turn out as bad as I thought they would. In fact, when they do, (rarely) I am very astounded, even flabergasted, dumbfounded, and unbelievably annoyed, and I feel compelled to tell everyone around me, usually starting with "I KNEW this was going to happen!" But it's easy to see I didn't really think it would, or I wouldn't be so surprised.
Things in the past of course don't even exist, in the sense that they once existed, then stopped existing, leaving only memories and possibly some trace behavior patterns. And then there are the things that never were things at all, even at the time that we thought they existed. We put labels on groups of ideas then we start thinking they are "things," then mourn their loss when events don't support the ideas anymore.
I'm sure this sounds ridiculous. It does to me. I'm just trying to get my mind around it. So far I'm only just slightly sure that by labeling something, we make it easier to "hang on" to it without having to think much about what it is actually comprised of--or was comprised of--and thus contribute to the source of our unhappiness.
Things in the past of course don't even exist
ReplyDeleteThis is true, of course, but being confronted with it in such bald terms made me really sad. I'm such a past-clinger, and not only to my own past, either. I've always been one of those people who will gobble up history while yawning at futuristic sci-fi. I'm just kind of obsessed with what and who was Before.
Oh, but don't worry about making me sad. I have Doritos. Soon they will be in the past, although they will defy your assertion by stubbornly continuing to exist in my midsection, and I will be happy again.
Total LOL @ Doritos!
ReplyDeleteThe guy who repaired my car said the winter holidays are great for auto body shops, more car accidents than ever. I had that (just the deductible), plus both my daughters' cars had expensive maintenance needed. All at once, ugh.
I guess there's some perfect balance of "proper" concern over the future and excessive, obsessive, needless worry, though I have no idea what that would be. I'm sure I don't plan correctly for my retirement, though I don't see what I could even DO at this point except find some rich guy to marry, ick. And I probably daydream too much instead of writing... but really who cares? What are my odds of getting published? I figure I might as well do whatever I feel like doing when I'm not working, even if it's talking nonsense to the cat.
I'm glad you enjoyed my post, Roy. The instant I thought of viewing my upsetting event as a point on the line I felt better. It seemed so much further away from me, not touching me. Every day that passes it's more distant and less important. And I automatically do that with other things, like that car accident (which was my fault)... so upsetting the first couple days, reliving my mistake. Then after the car was in the shop, not so much. After it was fixed, even less. Now? I think about it, but more in terms of BE MORE CAREFUL. Not as a omg omg omg how could that have happened omg type of thing.
And it's the same with the ex-bf too. I've stopped going over and over 2011 berating myself for every missed chance of dumping him earlier and saving myself extra grief. It's done now and way back on the line.
Life is good. I thought about skipping book club last night because I was so cold and a bit tired ... but I had so much fun!
"When it rains, I let it."
DeleteI don't know who said that but supposedly it was a 90 something, happy Native American fellow.
PS. Sounds like you have all the makings for a lovely day. Have a good one.
DeleteThis resonated today as I wrote the first draft of my self-assessment for last year. Every time I do this I am shocked at how little I accomplished and how much equivocation and b.s. I will have to muster just so my annual review at least reads a little bit positive. Every year I am nearly convinced that this will be the year I am finally caught out as a shirker who refuses to meet his potential and will be invited to leave the corporation ... at which time I will verify what we all know about engineers in their fifties: Once unemployed, they stay unemployed.
ReplyDeleteLots of fear talking there, and not a little defiance, even wishful thinking, so long as I don't think about what it's like to have little or no income.
Anyway, what then happens is my review turns out not to be as bad as I feared, and my seemingly inevitable unemployment is deferred until I'm another year older. So the fear remains, but it shrinks when removed from the concave mirror of self-review.