My husband’s been working a lot this summer—working too much, I think, but it’s the kind of deadline-driven work that becomes difficult to measure after a while. You just work and work and work and there’s this bottomless pit of endless work facing you, and everything’s behind schedule, and no amount of goal-reaching offers any solace.
Then there’s the home life: a kitchen in a state of renovation-purgatory in a new home in a new city; a dislocated and confused wife; three kids who need regular meals, rest and time to play; your life still packed in boxes; a brain rapidly forgetting the boxes’ contents and not being quite sure it matters anyway.
Add to that a smashed car, and a life likely spared by the deployment of an air bag.
Last week, hurrying home on little sleep trying to be available to give me a hand with dinner and bedtime, River rear-ended someone at a high rate of speed. His accident caused quite a disturbance, with at least one fire truck and four police cars holding everyone up. A co-worker came to pick him up and took him home. He canceled plans to return to work afterwards, but instead felt immensely sad about the accident. I kept saying, hey, I’m just glad you’re okay.
River returned to work the following day using our other vehicle, the family van. I don’t know if anyone at work was particularly aware that he might not have been returning if things had come out slightly different. He could have landed in the hospital, or put someone else there. Things could have been much worse, but the kind of accident he did experience was no picnic. I wanted everyone at work to give him flowers and a bonus for coming in the next day and not missing a beat.
Commuting by car can be rather horrific. Adding stress and lack of sleep to an already dangerous experience doesn’t help. But it’s back to the regular grind, the regular drive, the now-regular push to meet seemingly impossible deadlines.
Hopefully my husband will be driving more carefully now, and trying to make sure he gets enough sleep, but the grind at work goes on and seems to add layers of tension to each day. Being in a new city adds to my tension, too, and I can’t seem to unpack the belongings we carted with us on my own. I find myself rebelling against settling in.
Meanwhile, I spend time in the new house and listen to my new neighbor struggling with his own life and circumstance: caring for a dying parent, he binged on alcohol and had a couple of paramedic friends stage an intervention on him in the middle of the afternoon. When he catches me outside, I hear his tale of struggle, and keep mine to myself. Wearing shades that mask his bruised and bloodshot eye, he apologizes repeatedly for the two or three hours I overheard that day of cursing and fighting while he resisted being taken into his friends’ custody.
What does it take to cause us to remember to slow down and be thankful for what we’ve got? I’d hate to lose my husband to learn that lesson; I’d rather just be grateful every day and leave it at that, and not have to go through massive loss to be reminded.