Not Such a Great Week

I think that would be what both my dd and I would have to say about this one. I think we've both tried really hard to look on the bright side and be cheerful about stuff, but frankly it's just plain being one of those tough times.

So here's the tough times scoop from Vermont. Last week dd had an accident with her car because of icy roads and a thoughtless driver two cars ahead of her. At the time we figured it was no biggie because nobody was hurt and the insurance was going to take care of it. Well that's still the case, but it's getting more complicated. First of all the repairs (which we figured would take a few days) are going to take 2 1/2 to 3 weeks. Meanwhile she's driving my car which she hates and I'm driving a rental. Unfortunately when she took my car and the keys she also took my post office box key as well. The car the rental agency gave us is an HHR and I quite literally hate it. The visibility is lower than any vehicle I have ever driven and it makes me feel positively claustrophobic in traffic. Yesterday I was supposed to spend the afternoon with a friend, but got a call from our elderly relatives caregiver saying that I needed to sub for her at 2. So my visit with my friend from Colorado had to be cut short. Then last night I was cleaning off the bottom shelf on the refrigerator and my old knee injury (from high school no less) cropped up again for the first time in years and left me lying on the floor. This morning that knee is still sore, so no Bone Builders for me today. Dd meanwhile locked herself out of my car on Tuesday and had to get a locksmith to let her back in. Besides that one of the doctor's she works for has been positively beastlier than usual to her this week. And when she went to Mass just hours after her accident her friends found the accident amusing and were not sympathetic at all.

So all in all it's simply been tough. It hasn't been the kind of tragic tough that we've been through in the past, or the kind of long term tough that we knew in the months before she was born. It's been more like a cracked ankle kind of tough. You can still function, but it feels like you're slogging through mud and that everything you do is taking just a little longer. Meanwhile the people around you look on the bright side and feel like it's no big deal. And it really isn't a big deal, it's a bunch of little annoying deals which sap your energy and enthusiasm and make you want to be hugged instead of laughed at. It's one of those periods where you feel the splinters on the cross you are carrying. It's not exactly the sort of reflective Advent that we had in mind when this one started, but it has, obviously, given us a bunch of things to offer up.

However, keeping that HHR is not a cross I'm going to carry without question. I called the rental agency today and asked if they could swap it for something else. They're supposed to get back to me...So hopefully by the weekend I'll be driving something I don't mind driving.