Sudden Impact

I am on the market for a new car...Why? Because a fellow driver was "startled" by another driver and run into my baby. I was minding my own business at a traffic light, waiting for the signal to proceed, instead found myself waiting for a sudden impact that rocked my car and my nerves, sending me in a period of utter lack of control wondering when it would all end. Right after impact, my adrenaline kicked in so high; my thoughts so clear I could have passed the MCAT! I hopped out to see what in the world had possessed someone to cause a 4 car pile-up 1 block from home!

The last two weeks have been filled with gratitude that the damage was only to my car; it could have been much worse. I've talked to more people than I care to, thought through various scenarios including what could have been done differently and more importantly working towards correcting the results of this sudden impact.

So far this experience has been a very expensive inconvenience, but it's not the end of the world. But it has me thinking about severe sudden impacts in our lives that cause us to go into a tailspin, losing utter control and trying to right ourselves.

At some point in our lives we can be impacted by something that happens suddenly and unexpectedly with life-changing consequences. When these things happen we are required to immediately assess the situation, see what can be salvaged and take actions to get our lives back.

The challenge is to find a renewed life that includes enough components of the old life, while showing progress and growth from the experience. Many of us never fully recover from our sudden impacts and like the loss of a limp feel the constant presence of what used to be. Sometimes the impact is so severe that when we find ourselves again are only a hollow shell of what we used to be.

We cannot prepare for all of tomorrow's possibilities. When life happens and we are suddenly impacted, it takes a few moments; be it hours, days, or  years to work through and accept our new situation. Without such acceptance we cannot work towards a new walk. Once accepted, we have to believe that the new version of our lives will be at least just as good as the old, and might even possibly get better if we work towards betterment. And of course we must take actions to ensure that the impact does not have an indelible imprint with bitter consequences, which is what happens when fear steps in and takes  hold.

I've found that processing through a sudden impact is often enhanced by prayer, my writing and spending time with encouraging loved ones. Many friends and loved ones have provided me perspective about the accident. I have also talked to friends who are experienced in the dealings with insurance and with car dealerships.  As the dust is setting and everyone is returning to their normal lives, I am assessing what is salvageable and finding my new normal. The car is definitely totaled, and has to be replaced. My new normal is a new or new to me car which has to be purchased very shortly. I am taking concerted and specific actions towards replacing my car by talking to friends in the car dealership business as well as friends who have purchased cars recently and going for test drives and talking to the car dealerships.

So like my mom says, live in the living present; we can't erase sudden impacts, but can ensure their impacts leave us better than before. Fight for a normalcy that includes joy and happiness. Our focus on our lives must be the pursuit of happy living and not just a mere life of survival.


Have you gone through a sudden impact? How have you dealt with it? I would love to hear some of your ways to righting your world.

Happy living, everyone!

Half-stepping Diva

Loving You

Oh lawdie! I don fell off the bandwagon...and it backed up and rolled over me! over and over again! Ok, dramatics, but I did fall off and have lost my consistency in my dietary choices and it shows!

Since I have gotten to a more manageable weight, I decided to keep going and made a goal of discovering/building some ab muscles. You know, I purport to still carrying around some baby fat...no, not from having a baby...from when I was a baby 30 something years ago! And since I have been lackadaisical about my eating habits and my efforts in the gym, my potential for a 6 pack has expanded into the potential for a keg. Ok, still a bit dramatic, but my magic number of 35 inches around my mid section is slowly becoming a thing of the past. And this sister is not happy whatsoever about that!

As a 30 something year old woman I am definitely aware of how my appearance affects my daily interactions. I have used my perception of my body and/ or how it looks in clothes as a block to some things that I have wanted to do. Sometimes while getting ready to go out, I'd get so frustrated with my appearance that I simply would not go. Or decide against making plans in the first place because I didn't want to face the lying 3 way mirror in the dressing room, which has a sole purpose of seeking rolls of fat and putting it on magnified display. Though sometimes trivial, our appearance can be a stumbling block in our confidence and how we portray ourselves. And women are not the only ones who do not always feel confident about our appearance...it's a human thing that also affects our 30 something year old brothers as well...some of them are just better at not caring as much!

So once again, I'm resolving to consistency in my eating. I had cut out all added sugar (blog entry about how I finally lost the weight is coming soon!) but have slowly worked it back in my diet. So, back to what has worked, and focus on sculpting the muscles that I see trying to take shape. But above all those things, I am resolving to love my body no matter what she looks like!

I've recently been reminded of life's realities and with that, the importance of love, starting with love for all of me..including the silver hairs forming at my temples, my "athletic" build, my interestingly shaped toes and all those fat rolls that seem to only appear when I need to feel my best. I must love all of it. We often find faults with our body and harp on it, whether it's the acne that make us look 12 rather than 30 something, the extra body hairs that make us think of our Auntie Sally's mustache, premature graying, skinny legs, baldness, man boobs, a crooked smile or whatever we think should look better in order for us to feel great. But these are all the things that make us who we are and we often do not have control over them - no matter how hard I try, I will not grow past the 5'7" at which I currently stand (in fact, I might shrink as I get older!)

So as I chase the appearance for which I've been working so hard, I will continue to love me and not be so quick to criticize and demean myself. All of me is perfect. Period.

Half-stepping Diva

You have a Friend in Me

A couple of months ago, my jolly friendly parking attendant was replaced by two strangers. They were rude and they did not understand the arrangement that I had previously made with the other attendant and attendants before him. I found them generally annoying and had to keep myself from uttering names under my breathe after interacting with them. In fact when I drove into the parking lot, I often thought, ooh I have to deal with tweedle dee and tweedle dum. I felt that because they refused to understand me, they were intent on simply making my parking time unbearable. I was highly unpleased with them.

Then one day it hit me that these two are probably someone's father and possibly grandfathers. I saw one of them pull into the parking lot shortly afterwards and he had a Marines sticker on his car. I started noticing various things about the men that made them less...annoying.  I decided to adjust my attitude and the next morning, like I'd done with the previous attendant, I waved to them when I drove in and said a cheery good morning when I handed them my payment. The next day I noticed they waved first as I entered the parking lot and we exchanged greetings. All of a sudden my painful interaction had became a friendly place. With a simple attitude shift, I had made new friends.

I remember going to the market with my mom as a kid and she seemed to know soo many people! We would generally leave the house around 5 am to get the freshest vegetables...it was usually too early to be coherent let alone friendly, but my mom made her stops around the market and talked to her "friends". I learned as I got older that these women were virtually strangers to her, but for the purposes of her shopping experience, they were her friends. They had little nicknames for her and she always had something to tease them about.

We tend to treat people differently once they lose the mystical strangeness about them. During traffic my anger quickly dissipates if the person that just cut me off turns out to be someone I know. This has happened on several occasions with friends and coworkers who were just in a hurry. I've dismissed it with justifications of inattentiveness, which is generally unlike the irritation I feel towards all the other strangers on the road. We tend to forgive faster and not get so worked up when there is a connection with the other person.

I find that making this application to all aspects of my life can be very beneficial. Of course I do not have to trust everyone I encounter or make friends with everyone, but by seeing others as people and not barriers, harmful creatures of the other world or roadblocks in life, I can get to my destination with so much less stress and anguish.

Park Geun-hye

So a few weeks ago when I drove into the parking lot, I asked one of the gentleman whose name I now know, what's new, as  he was reading the newspaper. He informed me that South Korea had just sworn in a new president...and she's a woman. Wow! I learned something new.

Half-stepping diva