Friday the 13th

Today I saw a car crash.

No. I didn’t take pictures. It would have ruined my manicure.

Let me back up in a metaphorical, non-geographical sense.

My job has downsides (I work long hours and sometimes get mistaken for a toilet) but it also has perks. Today’s perk was that I got a free (to me) manicure.

Today for my job, I got paid to sit in a chair and have a man named Jon who spoke nearly no English rub my hands and use miniature torture devices on my cuticles. Due to my lack of non-English and Jon’s lack of for-real-English, our session involved little conversation and much me staring out the window.

Then it happened.

Here’s the thing about car crashes. The cliche is that it all happens in slow motion, but I don’t understand that. I have now both seen and been part of a car accident and I am going to call a royally huge BS on that cliche. Crashes happen so fast. It is absolutely instant. That is why they are called a CRASH.  dictionary.com defines a ‘crash’ as:

(of moving vehicles, objects, etc.) to collide, especially violently and noisily.

It is VIOLENT. It is HARSH. No part of my vocabulary equates ‘slow’ or ‘prolonged’ into a crash scenario. Crash denotes speed. Crash denotes inevitability. No part of ‘crash’ allows for a slowing down of anything. It only allows for the happening of it.

One minute you are just driving somewhere like you do every day of your life, and then you aren’t anymore. One minute you have a car you have planned on keeping, and then you don’t. One minute you are heading down a path, so sure of where it is going to lead, and you find an unexpected dead end.

How often have we woken up one Friday, one perfectly normal Friday (or any other day), only to have everything go a direction we never anticipated? Mentality like this is what makes it hard for some people to get out of bed in the morning, but I dare you to take it as a challenge. In order to crash – you have to be moving.

8 year old me wanted to be a veterinarian, then I shadowed a vet for a day. A dog knee surgery ended that dream.

16 year old me wanted nothing more than to be a Piano Performance Major and have music be my life. That, because of physical setbacks, was cut short.

24 year old me wanted nothing more than to finish my masters work in accounting and get my CPA license. After 6 months in the field – I wanted nothing less.

Now I am almost 26, I have a BS in Accounting, I sharpen glitter pencils for a living, and I love it.

The whole point is NO ONE knows where they are going (even when we think we do). Today, at 3:30, those three cars were all going somewhere, and then they weren’t. I thought I was destined for a dozen other things, but I am not even close to any of those dreams.

I am on a path, working towards something I think I want, and we’ll see how it goes. There could be monsters, nightmares, and trials. There could be a(n) Apocalypse Now , 2012, Armageddon scenario that says: “Stop trying. What’s the point?” Or I could find that *onething* that everyone is always hoping to find. I could find that perfect fit, and that is what I am aiming for.

So bring on the glitter pencils. I’m ready.

For now.