The last few days have been turbulent and somewhat chaotic for me. My very reliable car broke down on the way to the movies Sunday, and we had to get towed back to Cambridge. My AAA card had expired without my knowledge, and there was much great expense and all kinds of penalties for telephone maneuvering to get it re-instated in time to get us towed as we sat in the rain and darkness a good ways from home.
Even then, there were all kinds of extra fees and costs. The car is in the shop, still waiting for repairs. Something to do with low oil pressure and a possible leak. This is the first time my trusty car has ever broken down. It could have been a lot worse. Just look at the news.
I shiver to think of our farmhouse being washed away by a raging storm. I wish them peace and support.
But still, we all get caught in our own little turbulence.
I whined and sputtered a bit – I’ve been an AAA member my whole life preparing for just this kind of emergency, and when it comes, I am suddenly not an AAA member with no warning I can recall. And there are all kinds of new fees and costs for a “new” member. I got angry and even called to complain.
Is there anything more frustrating than a “nice,” ever-patient person on the phone who can’t help you, is paid to be courteous, and who can’t angry at you either. It’s just a waiting game to see who blinks first. It was probably my fault, I told Edgar, the shift supervisor.
Then I checked myself.
This morning, I got up to a flood of messages from distressed blog readers, they didn’t get the blog over the weekend, and it was nice to see that they cared. Something is off, the techs are checking it and working to fix it.
Remember my Billy Graham rule, I told myself:
Don’t speak poorly of your life. The cost of things will always go up. Nobody cares about your plans but you. Life will always intrude on my delusions. Who was it who taught us that life ought to be perfect, without unexpected problems and challenges.
Like everyone else, I keep looking for that period of peace and tranquility. Okay, this month, everything will go all right. Then I need $5,000 of dental work. Then the ridge cap on the top of the barn blows off, and it costs $1,000 to fix it; then glass stove top cracks and we need a new one. Then it costs $400 to get my car to Charlie our mechanic.
I don’t even to know what that repair will cost.
Wasn’t Billy Graham rich, didn’t millions of people pay to hear his sermons? He could afford to stay positive, yes? Why would I listen to him?
Here I am, thinking of getting a $2,500 puppy. This morning I learn I can’t make the Mansion Boat Ride on Lake George September 2, I have a long-standing doctor’s appointment that was switched at the last minute, if I don’t go on the 12th, I can’t go until January.
I need to go to on that day. Disappointing. I love those boat rides.
Listen to me whine. I hate whining, whether it comes from me or anyone else. I hear the familiar buzz of the whiner. I’ve worked quite hard to manage money and am proud of myself.
But the world doesn’t really care about my pride or self-absorption.
Does this sound familiar? It should, because everyone reading this has had similar experiences.
My life is your life, I never forget that, the idea is at the core of my writing. This isn’t a disruption of life, this is life. We all get afraid, we all see our careful planning upended, we all yearn that that phantasmic placid life, in which nothing inexpensive or surprising happens.
Has it ever really lasted that way for you? It never has for me.
This summer has been an extraordinary experience for me, trekking to Bishop Maginn High School every Wednesday of the summer, writing about those wonderful kids, gifted artists, dedicated teachers. Today, the new school year begins, and I’m staying away for a few days to let them get organized.
This has left me disoriented. I love that place, it is an intensive experience. And we did so much in such a short time. I miss that exhilarating and steadying feeling of doing good, every single day. I’ll be back at Bishop Maginn next week. (Check out their Wish List Gift Cards.)
We sat outside in the gentle breeze with our breakfast and looked out at what Maria called our “gentle view.” We both love the soft colors of the marsh and the flowers and shrubs and hills beyond.
I started to feel grounded there.
Yes, Jon, we all seem to have days like you related. As I get older (73 this year), my focus of each day changes, and the one thing I find that is most important to me, other then being glad that I wake up each day, is a feeling of gratitude. I can be grateful for all that is good for me, as well as grateful for the bad, because I grow from the bad. I learn to accept the unexpected and call on my coping skills to get through. Gratitude keeps me humble and lifts me over negativity. Sure, some days are going to be challenging and rotten, but I am grateful, knowing better days come too. As my sister-in-law says, “It is what it is.” Words to live by…
Thanks Mary, I started feeling this way when I was younger, I actually feel it much less now…
I love your writing, whining or not. You always give me food for thought. I sure hope this week ends on a happy and non-costly note for you and Maria. Thanks for always keeping it real.
I think you’re saying what we all say at times. When I apologize for whining to my dear friend, she laughs and says “you’re venting”. I don’t expect her to fix it, she just listens and says she’s sorry that happened. We smile and I feel better.
I’m sorry that so much dropped on you at once but you’re right about realizing it could be much worse.
Oh, Jon, you make me laugh…not at you, but with you! I totally understand and empathize with the glitches in your life over the past few days. Glad to hear this sort of stuff doesn’t just happen to me! AAA treated you very, very badly and they certainly should have just reinstated your membership upon payment of the yearly fee and towed your car for free. Terrible PR on their part. awful for you, and if you have the energy, I would certainly take the time to officially complain all the way up to the top of their wobbly corporate ladder!
My sister has been having quite a bad flare-up of her COPD over the past three weeks. Her nurse who comes to the house once a week for the past year has recommended she go on a simple, common medication for a week so my sister called her doctor(s) and asked that a refill of a prescription (already on file at our drugstore) be called in and delivered. She has been on this medicine many times before, it’s not a narcotic, which is understandably never refilled over the phone.
Well, the answer was, “Oh, no, my dear, you must come to the doctor’s office (both the specialist and primary care doc had the same response) as we do not prescribe over the phone.”
Well, she cannot walk more than 10′ without totally losing her breath, wheezing, etc., etc. and having to sit down, rest and take three different inhalers. Therefore, she is unable to get to either doctor because of all the walking involved. My sister’s nurse was even kind enough to physically visit the respiratory doctor’s office and personally request this medication refill for my sister! His request was also denied.
1. We could take a taxi to their office, however, I am not able to push her around in a wheelchair.
2. We could take a taxi to the ER, however, we cannot justify the expense to our fellow taxpayers of an ER visit on our already-overburdened system of so-called “unhindered access to free health care” in our country, which government on all levels has been haggling about since 1957. And, don’t ever buy into the misconception that health care in Canada is “free”. It isn’t. Complicated, convoluted, totally political, Byzantine, yes.
3. Ditto to calling 911 for someone who is in respiratory distress. However. it is NOT what we would call an emergency. (We’re not doctors, we just play them on TV.) 🙂
4. And, Urgent Care is a total joke here, so I guess we will then be forced to call 911 should her breathing continue to deteriorate!
Thus, she is just staying very quiet in the air-conditioned house, taking her many regular medications, eating my delicious home-cooked meals 😉 and waiting until her scheduled appointment with her specialist in respiratory medicine on September 17.
Frustrating, but just another one of life’s little annoyances, until it’s not. Let hope it doesn’t reach the point of crisis where her life will be endangered by uncooperative, indifferent, uncaring doctors and front-of-office personnel, a major, unfortunate consequence of “free health care”.
By the way, my sister has excellent employer-paid supplemental health insurance benefits (she is retired) for the rest of her life, on top of the bare minimum provincial health insurance. I do not. I shudder to think how I would get treated in the “bare minimum” health care scenario, not to mention the horrendous hospital/medication/doctor bills I would have to face IF I survive their lackadaisical efforts!
It’s my experience is that Murphy rules. Murphy visits me on a regular basis, sometimes it’s on the volume you have been experiencing and others, it’s just things that are a pain in the butt. Whining makes it better sometime. I only allow myself whining time of 3 days and hopefully shorter. After 3 days, I can hardly stand myself so I don’t thing those around me like it either. At that point and hopefully before, I just settle down and take back control. This works for may not for you . Anyway go ahead and whine just keep it to a manageable size—lol
I’ve been called many things in the two years since I retired from a wonderful position in the thoroughbred horse industry to write full time, but none of those names indicated my brilliant mind. I retired with very little savings and no pension to continue writing books that might or might not sell. I am basically living on social security alone with a mortgage payment. A week such as the one you just described would be devastating, yet I’ve never once regretted my decision. I’m living my best life because I’m doing what I love.
Jon, I love this photo! Gentle, calming peaceful and inviting. I can imagine sitting there breathing napping remembering and being present in the moment. Any chance you could sell that photo? Count me in. I too missed your blog over the weekend; I finally reapplied to join your blog and here it is! Thanks, Bev from Verdi, NV
Hey Bev, if you’d like to purchase any photo, you can email [email protected] I can sell any photos..they are $130