The Gift of Bashing My Car Into a Pole

Yesterday, I backed my car into a pole.

Not metaphorically.

Not one of those spiritual “I hit an obstacle and realized the obstacle was actually me” kinds of poles.

An actual pole.

You know how these things happen; suddenly, unexpectedly and quickly. I always say "Life happens in-between the moments" ... in the split - second moments that can change everything, immediately.

Thinking the car was in park, I released my foot off the break to see what my daughter wanted to show me on the phone... cute pictures of puppies, of course. Yup, that was my undoing of all awareness, all sense of my surroundings and I was seduced by the cuteness, as we slowly rolled back. And what seemed like many minutes later, Devon suddenly looks up and says "Mom the car is rolling ba... " CRUNCH! straight into the handrail we went.

A big, stationary, very difficult-to-miss handrail, which I have seen thousands of times when reversing into my designated covered parking spot.

And yet, I missed it. Or more accurately, I failed to miss it.

There is a very particular feeling that comes immediately after you bash your car into something that has absolutely no business being hit.

First, it was disbelief. What just happened?

Then realization. Oh shit.

Then bargaining with my embarrassment, my anger, and the reality that I just f-ed up my car. Maybe it sounded worse than it was.

And finally, the slow walk around to the back of the car where I discover that, yes, it was exactly as bad as it sounded. Dammit!

I stood there staring at the back of my car and thought: I am 50 years old. I know how to drive. What am I doing?!? I have driven through gnarly snowstorms over the Colorado pass in a 2wheel drive Volkswagen fox (you know, the leftover parts car), across many deserts, down sketchy dirt roads, through Los Angeles traffic and somehow, on an otherwise ordinary day, I backed directly into a pole.

How? I was distracted.

My mind and attention were somewhere else. Those damn cute puppies!

Then the sadness set in, realizing, my mind seems to be somewhere else quite a lot lately and this is now gonna cost me... there goes the puppy-fund (for now).

Welcome to perimenopause, I think.

Welcome to the strange land where I can remember the lyrics to a song from 1987, can track 16 simultaneous projects at work, but cannot remember to put the car in park, turn the car off, and THEN look at the cute puppies.

Welcome to the world of knowing what I want to say and then losing the words to say it. I start sentences and halfway through wonder "where I was going with this." I open my phone to do something important and twenty minutes later discover I am looking at a video of a baby goat wearing pajamas. What was I doing? No idea.

Meanwhile, my body appears to have received an entirely new operating system without asking my permission. Things are changing.

My brain occasionally feels like someone has opened 47 browser tabs and somewhere, inexplicably, music is playing but I cannot figure out which tab it is coming from and I hate the song. While I am trying to figure out this new version of myself, my daughter has become a tween, which means she is also becoming a new version of herself. The moments of tracking ladybugs has now been replaced with tracking the days of the month and finger painting has been replaced with Gel-X nail designs.

The little girl who used to love to dress up as mini wonder-woman and cross her wrists in front of her face to deflect those invisible bullets, who once upon a time would run towards me full speed so that I could pick her up and flip her over onto my head like a circus-trick duo, now is shopping for the new low-rise camo-pants from Edikted and asks me to "close my door on the way out, please". At least she says please.

She wants me.

She doesn't want me.

She needs my help.

She definitely does NOT need my help.

She wants independence while simultaneously needing a ride, money, reassurance, and snuggles.

We are both in transition.

Maybe that's why the pole got me.

Because sometimes life needs to make a really loud noise to get my attention.

CRUNCH.

Hello. Are you here?

ARE YOU HERE.

There is something remarkable about an accident.

For one second, everything stops.

The future disappears.

The past disappears.

Your to-do list disappears.

Immediate presences.

There is only this moment. And a dented car.

I don't particularly recommend this method of mindfulness.

Meditation is considerably cheaper.

But it works.

Here I am, writing this post, not because I was inspired by the peace and serenity of my fluid thoughts, like clouds rolling in and out of a windless sky or by the delicate awareness of changes I have been living in, nope. I was "bumped" into this awareness.

And while I was standing there looking at my car, I realized how much time I have been spending trying to keep up with my own life.

Trying to remember everything.

Manage everything.

Anticipate everything.

Fix everything.

Be everywhere.

Be available.

Be productive.

Be the mother I want to be while simultaneously aware that motherhood (as I knew It) itself is changing. And perhaps most exhausting of all, expecting myself to function exactly the way I always have without accepting that I'm not exactly the person I have always been.

I am 50. Most likely, I am at least half way through my life.

But I don't say this tragically.

I mean it literally, factually.

I am 50. Period.

My body is changing. Period.

My hormones are changing. My attention is changing. My awareness is changing. My priorities are changing. I am changing. Perhaps my job isn't to desperately hold everything in place. Perhaps my job is to slow down and pay attention while it all moves.

There is something beautiful happening here.

My daughter is becoming herself. And so am I.

Change is not a destination.

You don't arrive. You just keep becoming.

Oh yeah, I bashed my car into a pole. Ugh! I wish I hadn't.

3 minutes of pause. Start the timer and breathe.

I wish enlightenment had arrived during a quiet walk on the beach.

I wish the Universe had whispered gently into my ear: Alex, put the car in park.

But apparently the Universe looked at me and thought: She's not going to hear that.

CRUNCH. Ok, universe, I got it.

The gift is that accidents interrupt us.

They expose the illusion that we are completely in control.

They make us look at where we are.

And occasionally, they give us something we didn't know we needed.

A reset.

A reminder.

A moment of humility.

A really annoying repair bill.

And perhaps even a little gratitude.

Gratitude that it was a pole.

Gratitude that nobody was hurt.

Gratitude that cars can be repaired.

Gratitude that I have a job that allows me to repair my car.

Gratitude that I have a daughter that I can watch grow up.

Gratitude I have a partner who also happens to be my best friend.

Gratitude that bodies change because we have been lucky enough to live inside them long enough for them to change.

Gratitude that at 50, I am still becoming.

So today, I'm trying something different.

I'm slowing down.

I'm doing one thing at a time.

I'm offering my changing brain a little more grace.

I'm working on treating this season of my life as something to be deeply curious about and asking, what is lesson now?

Sometimes the gift arrives beautifully wrapped.

Sometimes the gift arrives as an opportunity.

Sometimes it arrives as a whisper.

And sometimes... CRUNCH!

As the cat posters from the 90's tell us "Just hang in there, baby!"