Tuesday, January 26

Right now I should be writing my American Heritage essay. Or doing my Family History homework--due tomorrow. Or finishing up my Comprehensive Scholarship essays. But no. I'm blogging. I'm avoiding the inevitable because I'm too much of a coward to face problems head on. I'm more comfortable running away and talking to a vast, expansive void known as the internet that can neither reply nor give me comfort. Why do I need comfort? By all accounts it makes no sense.

I wasn't wearing my glasses. The dirt residue from the melted snow had made it almost impossible to see the median. I thought I was far enough over. A bump. Scraping sounds that, were I to describe them, would make me sound like a moron. The sound of rolling metal as I see something roll away from my front left tire. Signal. Pull over. Put on the emergency lights. Hazard lights? What have I done? The thoughts come flowing in now, simultaneously rather than one after another. I won't be able to make it home. I'll have to walk to work at midnight. My phone is dead. I should call my parents. Oh they'll be so mad. I broke the car. My phone is dead.

Facebook.

I could use Facebook. Retrieve missing part from the tire. I've parked in a precarious place. A fleeting thought, quickly taken over by others. Focus. Walk to somewhere with internet connection. Facebook, calling out for help. Don't stress. People are willing to help me. Rescue. Relief. Just a hubcap. It's all right. Walk to car. Where is it? Are those the blinking lights? I don't see blinking lights. I've let the battery die by leaving on the hazard lights.

Gone.

Just gone. Like a mother blue-bird coming back to find her eggs missing, probably eaten. Except it wasn't just the eggs that were missing; it was the whole nest. Has someone stolen it? Did it roll away? Towed? What am I going to do?

Pray.

No, not pray. Speak. Communicate. Lay my woes upon the shoulders provided for me.

Cry.

Oh great. Now this is just getting out of hand. But it feels good. Let go. Let go of my inhibitions and my perceptions of others' perceptions. Cry like you cried at the duck pond. Except this is different. A quiet, silent release of my pent-up tear ducts. Each one carrying a little more of my woes, fear, and self-fury.

Turns out it had been towed. $120.

And now I listen to a woman I can't forget go on and on with rude, stuck up insults, stinging and cutting. But I've cried out all my tears, so it's easy to pick up my old mask, comfortable and familiar. Smiles. Laughs. It's all okay. Or at least it will be.