It's Funny How Life Turns Out, The Odds of Faith in the Face of Doubt*

This afternoon, I was following two of the partners from my law firm to a funeral home. We were going to the funeral home because one of our support staff lost someone in her family ~ so we were going to the visitation to be supportive of our support person.

(Lots of support happening in that sentence.)

Anyhoo, it was a funeral home I had never been to, so I was following the two partners in my car, and I was cut off by a tow-truck, and I couldn't see the car I was following.

I attempted to move into the left lane and then in front of the tow truck, and at the last minute, I saw the partners turning into the funeral home, and I swerved in order to make the turn, which meant that I cut off the tow-truck (which had just cut ME off about a minute earlier) and I nearly got into what would have been a really ugly accident. It would have been really ugly.

The kind of accident that probably would have been ironically ugly to have occurred in front of a funeral home, honestly.

But, that's NOT what happened. I didn't get hit, I turned fast and got out of the way of the truck, and my heart was beating about a gazillion miles a second, which I attempted to not let on, because I was at a funeral home with a whole bunch of people I don't know from Adam and two people who are my boss. (Two of my bosses?) (Not sure how to make that sentence work.)

So, we (the two partners and I) talked to our support staff person for a while, and looked at pictures of her loved one, and I told the funny story of the time my mother got pulled over while riding in the passenger side of a hearse**, and then we left and I went to my car and sat in it for a few minutes thinking about throwing up in consideration of the fact that I had almost caused a heinous accident IN FRONT OF A FUNERAL PARLOR.

I was pretty freaked out and finally alone in my car and able to be freaked out, and I didn't have the courage to make a left turn out of the funeral parlor after what had happened, so I turned right and took the scenic route home and turned up PINK'S "Please Don't Leave Me" and "Fun House" really, really loudly in my car and sang along.

And once I could breathe again, I thought that there are some things that have been beating myself up about (mostly related to Kelsey's disappearance) (she's still missing) that I need to let go, because, honestly, they are not my fault. And so I let them go, in some kind of, "I am alive right now but for the grace of a good set of brakes on a tow truck and I need to not feel guilty about what I did or did not do 13 years ago" moment of epiphany.

Then I went to the grocery store and bought a crapload of Cheezits, Diet Coke, lipstick and Ice Cream, because, apparently, almost killing myself in front of a funeral home made me really hungry and really in need of gloss. (Also, ice cream is on a good sale this week at Kr0ger. Here in my neck of the woods, anyway. $2.47 for Edys! For real.)

LM

* Josh Joplin Group, Camera One
** Remind me to tell you this story