I have a story to write, but I’m not sure which angle to approach it from. Usually my life events are pretty straightforward — Camille does something funny, a repairman can’t understand me, or one of the boys has an accomplishment that I feel like bragging about. Easy blogging.
I’ll start by saying that Josh was going to come home last night. I only had that date on the calendar for 24 hours before it was bumped to later, but it was long enough to make mental plans for a weekend together before the boys go back to school. Long enough to be disappointed, even though I promised myself I wouldn’t get my hopes up. Been there, done that, push repeat.
So I was given a second date — that one got bumped too. And then a third, and now I have a 4th or possibly a 5th, but at this point I’m like, “Why bother!?” Hoping he comes home someday . . .
I share that part of it to say that yesterday I was already working on borrowed time. I was going through the motions thinking, “Well, Josh should have been in the air by now and I could have been getting ready to pick him up at the airport.” I had been given the finish line and had completed my marathon. I was not supposed to have to run to Mile 26.3 (or .4 or .5 or beyond).
In spite of that, we were having a good day. At least I could say, “I was right,” about my cynicism at him actually returning on the earliest possible date. Small joys. We had a family work party to attend that evening since we have had so many new people join the unit this summer that I haven’t met yet. Calvin had finished his last day of work and we had several end of summer parties this weekend to kick off the new school year. At least I wouldn’t be sitting around annoyed that Josh wasn’t back yet.
I picked up the boys from base (Carter has been going to the teen center during Calvin’s work hours since he’s finally old enough) and we headed to the other side of the island to join the BBQ that was already underway. We were speeding along and the boys were taking turns soloing to parts of the Pitch Perfect soundtrack when my car suddenly bucked back and forth with a loud THUNK! and started shaking like it was going to fall apart. I was in the fast lane and my speed was dropping and it was rush hour, but miracle of miracles I had 5 lanes of traffic to cross to get over and they were all open. I feel like I take my life in my hands regularly when I try to merge at this particular spot where two freeways join and then separate and everyone is quickly criss-crossing to get all the way over both ways, but on this day? It has never been so clear.
Since there’s no shoulder on this stretch of road I had to go up the overpass to get off at the closest exit and I kept hoping and praying that the car would keep going until I could get somewhere where I could pull over. I came thundering down the offramp and there was still nowhere to go except straight, but traffic was backed up and stopped at a traffic light. The car was sputtering and jittering and I had it in neutral but my foot lightly on the gas enough to keep the RPMs up . . . and then my car started smoking. A Bahraini man came running up through the lines of traffic waving a fire extinguisher so I quickly turned off the car and we abandoned ship. Camille was asleep in her carseat and the boys freed and pulled her out with lightning speed. Once out of the car I could see there weren’t flames, just smoke from what I assume is a broken belt or something so I crossed my fingers that the car would start up again and I was able to drive it up and over the curb and onto a patch of dirt before it died.
We pulled our stuff out of the car, locked it up and started walking home. The other miracle (or the 7th, 10th, or 14th, depending on how you want to count them) is that my car broke right before the exit that was closest to my house when it easily could have happened anywhere along width of the island. I could have called someone to pick us up and give us a ride, but I didn’t have to since we were only about a mile from home.
