Life in the slow lane.

I do not regularly post about my everyday life... But this time I have to share. In the early morning of july 8th, we (as in my husband, our 2 children, our dog and I) were traveling to France. We left the night before, meaning to arrive at my In-Law's house around 7ish the next morning. All went well, and we did listen to all the good advice on traveling looooong distances. We had a good 900 km (560 miles) to go and did stop frequently. Because we both have a driverslicence, we alternated who would drive and avoid getting sleepy behind the wheel.

At about 60 km (38 miles) from our destination we were harshly woken up... al 4 of us! For just a second my husband must have dozed off and missed a curve in the road. Our sturdy VW came to a full stop with a loud, creaking sound... and then came silence. I remember just a moment of nothing before I started what I am good at: taking care of everything with no question as to how I was handling the whole ordeal. There were children to be comforted, phonecalls to be made, nurses from the ambulance and the policemen to speak to... all in my best French! And I can tell you that my French is fine, but not in a state of emergency. Luckily, everyone we met was helpfull and very kind.

My parents-in-law drove over to meet us. My husband had been taken to hospital by then and they helped me get our belongings into their car. Then they drove me to the hospital to find out how my husband was doing: he suffered a headwound, 2 wounds on his left arm, he broke the metacarpal bone of his left little finger and ulna of his left arm... Last winter he shatterd both bones in his right lower leg (shin-and calfbone) and he was just up an running again! He had to stay in hospital for 5 days and was fixed up nicely.

The children, dog nor I didn't suffer any harm!  I only had very sore muscles in my neck and right shoulder from the tug of the safetybelt and that was it. We are so very lucky to be able to tell this story! OK, our car is wrecked beyond repair... but other then that...

Now that the worst is over I can start re-orienting life. If anything, I have learned that I don't want to live in the fast lane anylonger. I want to be mindfull of what I do, asking myself what is needed Here&Now. Asking myself what is needed, what I need... It's not easy, because I am not used to an approach like this but it is good therapy. I hope to keep it up, it's easy to sit down and keep on asking myself: "Why does all this happen to us? Didn't we have enough misfortune?" I still want to believe this wake-up call will bring some good in the end.

Breakdowns can create breakthroughs. Things fall apart so things can fall together.

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