Every Day Is A Winding Road

My car accident, and its aftermath, happened right over this blog's 4th anniversary... and, just to top that off, I've struggled to get back to writing full time for more than a week.

Coincidence? I'm thinking no.

I don't mean the tree falling just in time for my, er, blogiversary (i hate this stuff, the stuff with the made up words), just the sense that, when a disaster strikes, it can up-end the best laid, normal plans.

This week has been a disquieting mix of trying to "get back to normal" and deal with the unexpected; it doesn't help that my job at Starbucks is also in a state of flux (that, after all, is what put me on that winding road, at that time, on that fateful day), and every day is a new twist or turn in working at two stores, and trying, imperfectly, to be the kind of support my boss needs so she, too can deal with a life in tremendous flux (it doesn't help, let's just say, when your trusted right hand calls to say a tree fell on his car. On the way to work).

I always say, each year, that when I started this blog I wasn't sure what to expect, that my life is way different now than it used to be, blah blah blah. I like this journey that I'm on - still - twisty roads and all. I'm not loving the aftermath of having been in a major unexpected car accident - and, indeed, learning the meaning of "accident" and "unexpected" - but I walked away, unscathed, and lived to tell the tale. As bombastic as that sounds... it was last Friday that the insurance company decided the car is beyond repair. I walked away from a totaled car. It gives one pause.

When I started this blog - here we go - I felt that I had something to say; and lately, these days, I'm not as sure as I once was about that, to be totally honest. I said a lot of what I wanted to say, and finding new ways to say it, or new topics to write about, isn't always easy. That's not news to me... but living the reality of it, dealing with the pressure I put on myself to try and write everyday, and especially failing to make that goal in this past year, has been trying, frustrating, at times demoralizing. It doesn't help that we're in an enormous economic crisis (I already wrote about that, a lot) or that our political life in this country is in an especially messed up place (yup, covered that one at length as well).

It doesn't help, either, that a tree fell on the car... but let's try to remember what we can cotrol... and what we can't.

All of which, I know, can make this anniversary sound defeatist, or like I'm giving up, or deciding to move on. Hardly. The idea of stopping appalls me. The idea that I'd agree to be a statistic (I am haunted by the words of a very smart, possibly the smartest, man I've ever known in my working life, who in a discussion of blogging said most blogs don't last more than a year, or two, because people just stop writing them)... is not acceptable.

And so, I soldier on. Every day is a winding road. And on that road, well, it's never quite clear what's around the bend, or over the hill, or under the tree. I could stop, I could turn onto an easier, straighter road... but like I said, I kind of like this journey I'm on, as it unfolds, I'd like to tell people about it, and to do that requires a commitment that's not easy, and may even be a struggle at times. And that struggle may get harder at various points along the way. Four years on, that's what I've come to understand along this winding road. The journey continues, a little bit closer to feeling fine.

Comments

[jinb]

You know, Anglachel just posted again after quite a long hiatus, and I don't think anyone is yelling at her for it.

Glad to see your writing whenever you post it!