Monday, January 5, 2009

Living in the Moment

2008 will go down in the family history as "The Year of Near Misses". I feel like it was a good year and pretty positive overall, but if I think about it too much I realize we had quite a lot of stress and worry or at least potentially stressful worrisome situations. Most of these situations turned out fine and as usually the case, it was best not to stress about it and just be. So really it should be named "The Year Which Taught Us to Live in the Moment", but unfortunately I don't think I'm quite there yet, but I'm perhaps a little closer after experiencing 2008.

At the end of this year, we were driving home from my cousin Nancy's house after a post-Christmas family get together and we were hit by a woman who ran a red light. It was not a good accident...most aren't I suppose, but we are all fine. I am having some lingering pain in my knee, but we are quite lucky. All five of us were in the car and Parker was pretty upset by the event. Dema took it in stride and was able to find some positive excitement and Josie was pretty fine with all of it. Our car was more than totalled by the crash and subsequent traffic light falling on top of it. I have to say, I am quite impressed with our 10 year old Subaru Outback (or as some of our friends call it "the vegan mobile"). I highly recommend Subaru. My sister had the odd experience of watching our car get towed away (not an easy task apparently with bits off it all over the road, the light on top of it, and just pretty much being a mangled mess) while she listened to my voice mail saying we had been in a crash. She just happened to stop at a store across the street from the wreck after we had been given a ride home. I still count this accident as a "near miss" because we all walked away.

Nothing like a car crash to give some perspective on things. I'm still working through it all. For now one thing it means is that we will find out how well we can do the "car-free" thing. We've tried it for a few weeks here and there and we try not to use a motor vehicle often, but now we won't have the option of a car. I'm excited to face this challenge, but am open to it not being the best choice for our family. Rob bikes to work pretty much every weekday in all kinds of weather, but I have three kids to take with me everywhere I go. We homeschool which makes it even more interesting. If I just had to drop them off and pick them up from our neighborhood school and cruise around town on my own that would be easier, but homeschooling for us is rarely being at home all day. We have various activities we do on different days...museum, library, homeschooling group, etc. which take us all over our twin cities and beyond. We are on a bus route, but I have to say our bus system leaves much to be desired for those who are not just wanting to get to campus and home. We take the bus a fare amount as it is and it can take hours to do one errand and it can entail standing out in the very cold weather for longer than the kids would like. Especially, nights and weekends, the bus will not be our answer. We have a lot of great friends who have offered to help out when we need it and I'm sure from time to time we will need to ask for help more than we like to, but that may be good for us as well. I also have to weigh in how this will effect my business since I have errands to run for the business and quite often have to hurry as it is to make appointments. It will just take more planning and forethought and flexibility and possibly less flexibility in some areas. I will try to take it a day at a time...a moment at a time...and enjoy the now.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yikes, that sounds horrendous!
I'm so glad that you are all O.K!

Jumbleberry Jam said...

Happy New Year! May it be a safe one. Good luck on the totally car-free experience. We'll be thinking of you!!

Tracy said...

Wow, that sounds scary! I am so glad that you are all okay. Good luck on being car-free! I would love to move in that direction... not practical for a lot of things, since we are a 30 minute drive from C-U, but I guess it wouldn't kill me to bike to the library here in Rantoul occasionally!

Anonymous said...

What a horrible experience. I'm so glad to hear you are all okay. Hugs to you and your family.

the sandwich life said...

SO relieved that you guys are o.k.....and as always can't thank you enough for all the time you watch the guys....it's been nice seeing your guys over a little bit more too!