Image hosted by Photobucket.com

Friday, September 09, 2005

WHERE have I been.

Where have I been?

Where have I BEEN...

Where HAVE I been…

WHERE HAVE I BEEN.

I don’t know.

Everywhere and nowhere.

Saturday I came down with Earl’s cold. It’s a nasty one and really drains the life out of you. Still, I grabbed a dog and went running for 45 minutes straight on Tuesday. I haven’t been running for a long time but because I’ve been doing my kickboxing and sword class, I was in good shape and was able to run that long without stopping. Jack was a trooper too. For a nine-year old mutt, he sure has energy. I’ve always said he might calm down when he’s fifteen, and seeing as how he ran the whole time and still bolted for a deer when we were done as well as jump up in the air to catch bugs, I think my prediction may be correct.

Anyway my throat didn’t hurt anymore after we ran, so I thought I had sweated the cold out. But Wednesday I woke up feeling awful. Earl stayed home with his cold and for some reason I thought I should go to work. I should have stayed home.

Half way down rt. 78, while sitting at a dead stop in traffic, car and I got slammed into from the rear by a woman in a pick-up truck. As if pulling over and getting insurance info isn’t stressful enough, getting your car back onto the highway from the left side is. Car’s bumper wasn’t dented (although her ego was) but there were big black marks from the lady's truck and I thought it best to have an auto body shop tell me what the deal is. But by the time I got to work I had the mother of all headaches and decided to take some Advil and go to the auto body after I felt better. My cold was getting the best of me and I was stressed.

Noontime came and everyone pretty much told me to go home so they wouldn’t catch what I had. I thought, geez if I had just stayed home in the first place, I wouldn’t have gotten hit nor would I have used my gas up. So I left but first stopped at the auto body shop for a little looksy. The estimate he gave was pretty high and I panicked because we hadn’t gotten a police report, which you need for insurance claims. I got back on the highway and figured out which overpass I was under when I got hit – thank dog I at least knew I was under an overpass and it was just a matter of which one. I drove on over to the state police barracks to report the accident. They were happy to oblige and gave me a form to fill out incase I had to submit a claim. Then I took off for home again feeling better about the whole thing.

I got to relax for a whole hour before getting stressed again.

See, Earl is getting ready for his fishing trip to Canada and of course, he needs his birth certificate – the one thing suddenly I can’t find. Doesn’t it figure... It has always been in an envelope in our desk drawer. Well, as luck would have it, it wasn’t there this time. I looked twice in the drawer, taking everything out and searching through all envelopes and folders. Not there. My search lasted 5 HOURS. I looked through all our wedding stuff in the attic, all our Mexico vacation stuff, and everywhere I could think it might be. Nothing. Earl called S, who was going on the Canada trip with him, to tell him the problem. S said he’s never really needed his birth certificate until this year when he went earlier. He said this year they were being stricter, and thought Earl might be able to get into Canada but not out...

Great.

Well at least he wouldn’t miss the trip, he just might not be able to get home. I fell asleep with a huge knot in my stomach. I was afraid his whole trip was ruined. The next day I felt like someone hit me with a truck. The cold was twice as bad. Earl was still sick as a dog so we both called into work and sleep until 2pm. After I got up, I went online and found a number for overnight delivery of birth certificates, however it still takes 3-4 days to process it. That meant I would have to order it and then have it overnighted to Canada so he could pick it up – or worse, drive it 11 hours to the border and hand deliver to him. Oh man.

As Earl went into the kitchen to make something to eat, I sat down and stared at the drawer. I remember my mom telling me it never hurts to look again and pulled the drawer out one more time. Once again, I dumped everything out and looked through all the envelopes in there. I was absolutely positive it had to be there. There is no other place it would be – not unless he had needed it at some point, took it out and never put it back but he swore he never did. And I was certain I would have known if it wasn’t with mine. I got down to the bottom of the drawer and ran my hand threw the business cards and various little objects in there. I saw everything that I had seen the two times I looked before… Except for one thing. It was a small 4x4 folded up piece of white paper sitting right smack in the center. I picked it up, noticed it was thick and thought it was a junk mail advertisement or something. I started to unfold it and saw it had a green decorative border, and then saw the North Carolina watermark and sure enough - it was his birth certificate. Right in the freaking place I thought it was and where I had already looked twice before. I screamed as loud as I could I FOUND IT!!! and tears came pouring out my eyes. Earl came running in to see. Oh what a relief! To think of the hassle we were about to go through over one little piece of paper and now we don’t have to anything but let Earl go have a great time. I can’t tell you how happy I am today and remarkably, my cold is almost completely gone this morning.

Stress. How can something so invisible cause so much damage to a person? I’ve always found that to be quite amazing. Most things that hurt your body have a physical form. Stress doesn’t. You can’t x-ray stress. You can’t see it in a blood test. You only see the havoc it wreaks on your body. If I were to draw a picture of stress, it would be a big black smudge.

So today I am back to work. That alone is the most I’ve done in awhile. I have not been around blog town to visit my friends or to post anything myself. I haven't put up my SPD picture I promised I would. I haven’t been in the mood to play with Photoshop or my camera. I haven’t even been in touch with my friends that I usually email. I haven’t done the dishes or vacuumed, I haven’t put the clothes in the basket away. I haven’t done anything.

I have however tried to figure why things happened lately the way they did. I believe things happen for a reason and why all this came down the way it did is still a mystery. Was it all so I finally clean out my file cabinet and get my papers in there instead of my drawer? Was it all so I could learn where the state police barracks are?

I don’t get it. I’m just glad it’s all over.
>