Screeching Halt
The stress of an over-committed life has just caught up with me. Again. Fortunately the Universe ha its was of getting the necessary message through using surrogate situations and objects. But I am a good listener, and most of the time I get it in the first round. But this one took two rounds.
Last Fall I was running around like a maniac, shuttling kids, keeping up with commitments, often driving above the speed limit. Then one night Blue Leaf, my electric car, my pride and joy, got hit. No fault of mine, someone backed into it in a parking lot. But the event forced me to slow down, to get out of the frantic pace.
Apparently I did not take the message to heart. Self-publishing my first book, often staying up past midnight battling my picture editing software, then CreateSpace’s submission guidelines; in the meantime trying to be the best Mom, the best Wife, the best Green Chemist, and the best Foster-turned-Permanent Parent to a dog filled with heartworms.
So it happened again. Yup, my car. I drove over a gravel-filled crack in the road, and the screeching started immediately. A mile later it was so loud that my daughter Kati greeted me in front of the house with a horrified look on her face. Next day I called a tow truck and scheduled a service at the dealership. And I reflected again on the pace I have been living, and what would happen if I came to a screeching halt instead of my car. I promised, again, to my stressed-out body to take it easy from now on.
A minute before the tow truck was supposed to arrive, I gingerly backed the car out of the garage. Nothing. Not even the faintest scraping noise. Then I saw the tow truck coming down the street. Oh, oh… The gentleman was nice, he waited while I drove around the block, then looked under the hood. He and I came to the conclusion: a stone had been wedged in the wheel, then came loose when I backed up.
“You got off easy, but we are begging you, please go slower!”- The Universe
