I tried writing a post three times yesterday but trashed each one. A new stressor has cropped up in my life and I found it was something I just couldn’t write about yesterday. It was too new, and my emotions, which there is a whirlwind of them over this, were too raw. Let’s see how it goes today.
Lance has been taking the dogs around to different local trails and dog parks, lately, which is great. He has become a bit obsessed about doing so but it’s so wonderful for the dogs and I figured it would fall into a groove. It probably would have.
Saturday, on their way home from their latest trail and dog park find, Lance got into a car accident. He is fine, so are the dogs. The truck, on the other hand, is not so fine. The passenger side front fender and bumper are crunched. Lance drove the truck home but that is where it is going to stay until it is fixed, which may be a bit. Being down one vehicle is frustrating, to begin with, but there is more. The accident was Lance’s fault, and the reason it happened is the part that is causing me to have the whirlwind of emotions.
Lance was about 10 minutes from home when the accident happened. He was listening to Pandora on his phone, which he had mounted to the dash board. Pandora was having some sort of issue, not playing right or something like that, so Lance diverted his attention to fixing that. When he turned his head back to the road, he was about to hit the Jeep that was in front of him, which was preparing to make a turn at the road they were approaching. Lance says he braked and tried to swerve around the Jeep in an attempt to miss it, but…well, obviously, he didn’t miss it. The Jeep ended up with a minor dent (Jeeps are built tough!).
My whirlwind of emotions? Frustration, anger, disappointment…there may be more, but those are the ones I can easily identify, at this point. Accidents are frustrating enough to begin with, regardless of who is at fault, but the fact that the accident happened because Lance was dinking around with his phone… Well, it makes me just want to scream profanities like a drunken sailor. It didn’t have to happen.
After getting home, Lance began to assess the damages to the truck and what he would need to do to fix it. At this point, all I wanted to do was pour gasoline over it and light a match. I had worked hard to make sure we had a second vehicle, for a number of reasons, one of them being so Lance could find his own full-time employment. Another reason was so we would have a back-up vehicle should anything go wrong with the Jeep.
After taking a breath or two, I let Lance know that I was not going to put a single penny into fixing the truck. He would need to get a job if he wanted to fix it or figure out how to fix it without needing any money for it. I reminded him of our deal that he would get a job if he had a vehicle. He hasn’t pursued it, so… Well, I just don’t feel like I need to fix the truck for him. He didn’t hold up his end of the bargain. This, of course, just added to the depression that was taking hold of him.
I wanted to scold him for being so irresponsible, but I didn’t. There was a whole lot I wanted to say to him that wouldn’t have been helpful, or nice, but I didn’t. After making it clear that I was disappointed that he hadn’t honored our agreement and that I was not going to contribute even a little bit to fixing the truck, I just walked away. What else could I do that wouldn’t make the situation even worse?
At one point, yesterday, Lance stated that he missed the truck, that he really loved that truck, and he was really depressed about the fact that he had ruined it. All I could think was “Then why didn’t you cherish it?” I kept my mouth closed. Another moment where me speaking would not have made things better.
I’m still processing this whole situation. I can’t talk with him about it because I still don’t trust my mouth to be nice, or, at least, to not be cruel. There is nothing productive I can say to him about any of this. At least, nothing that comes to mind, at this point.
So, yeah, that’s the new stressor, the newest left foot, right foot, repeat moment I am trudging through, attempting to not create damage or drama. UGH.
Dragonfly Gypsy USA 