Yesterday, all day, my car information system told me, “WARNING…TIRE LEVEL VERY LOW”…and of course I completely ignored it, waiting until we were going to an event last night to rush to the gas station and fill the tire with air. On our way home, I meant to stop and buy a can of Fix-a-Flat, but instead, opted to rush home and hide under the warm covers of our bed.
So it should be no surprise that when I woke up, excited to run to Starbucks and grab my daily 6-shot Iced Americano before heading out to lunch with our friend, that I found a completely flat, or as I called it, dead tire. And of course, it should also be of no surprise that I cussed out that ole truck driver in the sky.
And that got me absolutely nowhere.
So I came inside and started complaining to Alex who was lost in a world of Brother’s and Sisters and Grey’s Anatomy. “We’ll just call someone to bring us a can of that stuff and then we’ll go get a new tire. It’s not that deep.” He said, focused on the television.
“But I just paid the bills and now I have to buy a new tire and we don’t get to do anything else today because now our day is ruined!” I cursed. And he just stared at me. “Is there anything else you want to complain about?” He asked.
So I cleaned out the garage while we waited for our friend and I got more and more angry thinking about how, as Gilda Radner so appropriately said years ago, It’s always something! And that’s exactly how I felt. And then we drove to the tire place and the guy told me a new tire would be $200 and of course…I freaked out again. “I’ll give you some money,” Alex said, “How much do you want”, but I just really wanted to complain.
Until the guy came out and showed me the screw that had been stuck in my car tire. “I can fix it. It’ll only be about $25 bucks.” He said, walking away. And the guy behind the counter smiled over at me and smirked, “You got screwed!” And he was right. But not because of the tire, but because for some reason, I let it bother me all day. And as we were walking out, Alex reminded me of this as he teased me about how I had already spent the $200 on the tire before the guy even came out.
So I guess the lesson, which I give to everyone else, because it’s always easier to coach than it is to perform, is to take my own damn lessons and not borrow trouble and enjoy the present. Because the rest of the day was awesome and in my entire life…I’ve never been given more than I can handle in a day! And that’s a miracle.
And then I thought back to Gilda Radner and how I had always loved her humor on Saturday Night Live and how I loved her love affair with Gene Wilder so I started looking up some of her quotes because I think we need to look back to our teachers on a regular basis. And funny enough…I read the quotes, some of my favorites I had heard uttered so many times from my mom, and I realized, LIFE, is just not that serious…so I thought I’d share a few of them….
“I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love. For me they are the role model for being alive.”
“It’s such an act of optimism to get through a day and enjoy it and laugh and do all that without thinking about death. What spirit human beings have!”
“The goal is to live a full, productive life even with all that ambiguity. No matter what happens, whether the cancer never flares up again or whether you die, the important thing is that the days that you have had you will have lived.”
“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.”
Damn! I needed that today. I needed to stand in my front yard and watch my puppies Boo and Tucker run across the grass for the first time in their life, I needed to hear a version of Mr. Tambourine Man I had never heard before, I needed to eat some delicious pineapple pizza with my man and I needed to drive and dance in the car, listening to great music…how amazing life is…if only we could remember that every second and live as such…and maybe, with a little practice, I will…because we’re on borrowed time as it is!
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