C'est La Vie

Who do you spend most of your time with?

Who do you know the best?

Who do you trust the most?

Who do you care about the most?

I promise after my little story... You will understand why I asked these questions.

So today (technically yesterday...hour differences and such), as I was sitting in the public library studying... I glanced up, and saw a 20-something year old sitting in my close proximity. Instead of reading or writing, or texting...or any other random activity that can be done in solitude, he was observing the walls and the ceilings. He also stood out in the crowd... like a red rose would in a field of white roses. He had down syndrome. Due to a random dream I had the night before about an ill baby, I dosed off thinking about having a child with an "abnormality", whether physical, mental or both. Then my thought process went further... and I thought to myself... if I were to ever have a child (and those of you who know me, know that I do not want children), would I ever adopt? and if so ... would I adopt a child with down syndrome... then I thought about how people pick and choose (or atleast try to) who they want to adopt ... I couldn't help but wonder about those who are adamant about adopting (or being the surrogate) for a child from a particular background, with whatever intelligence and so on and so forth... and then I got sad... but then I thought to myself, would I really be capable of raising a child with down syndrome? I work with autistic children and their families and I'm well aware of the hardship that they go through....

I then realized that I was daydreaming for way too long... and as I glanced right back down at my book... I heard a woman on the paging microphone saying, "would the owner of a blue Honda Civic, please report to the parking lot"... I didn't think much of it, other than "lol that sucks"...and tried to focus again... she came back on and this time, she announced my lisence plate... and at this point I thought ... um.... she is paging ME...thats MY car..

I went downstairs and they told me that someone had hit my car and that I "better run". I walked.

I got to my car...only to find this:

Please note... I realize this picture doesn't really show the damage done to my car... but its the only picture that doesn't show either plates yet still shows how this woman managed to drive UP the curb and hit my car regardless. The right passenger side of my car.... completely gone... it hurts to look at the pictures ! lol Also, please note how my car is parked crooked... it was straight when I initially parked ! lol

My very first reaction was ... "WTF... How did she manage to do that ???" My second reaction was ... "wow... she didn't just drive away!"

I remained calm. She had already called the police. I called my towing company ... Police came, went through the whole procedure, towing guy came and I left with the towing guy (to go to a repair center). I then got myself a rental car and drove home (5 hours later ofcourse).

Moral of the story... I was shocked by my own behavior. I would have thought that I would freak out... that I would cry ... that I would be confused. I handled it really well... all on my own. I truly surprised myself. I learned through this whole thing (oddly enough), that I'm more capable, more independent and much stronger than I thought I was. All of this may not seem like a big deal to you... You may have been in worst situations before... but I've never had to handle something like this all on my own... and I did well ! I was just pissed off, because this took so much of my time, the time that could have been spent on studying !

Life events may NOT always make you a stronger person... but atleast they will teach you something about YOURSELF.

Back to my introduction: If you don't remember the questions, here they are again (for those lazy ones who dont want to scroll up)

Who do you spend most of your time with? Who do you know the best? Who do you trust the most? Who do you care about the most?

What were your answers? I'd love to know how many said " myself " . Because you are ALWAYS with yourself lol , the amount of alone time may be variable, but you're always present with yourself (or are you really present?? ) . Do you know yourself best?? you should !!!!! I think we spend too much time trying to get to know others....before we actually know ourselves. As strange as it is, we (sorry to generalize) don't know ourselves as well as we should ! but we claim to know our best friends, our significant others, parents ...you name it.

And do you trust yourself the most? Well you better !!!!!!! and you also better care about yourself the most too (yes I realize debatable).

But When we are asked those questions, we often think, "oh well I spend most of my time with so and so and i know my best friend the most and bla bla bla". But our first answer should be ...ourselves !!!! Because if you dont know yourself well enough, and if you dont trust yourselves the most and care about yourself, not only will you be incapable of projecting them onto others, but others would fail to truly reciprocate.

Spend time with yourself... we all do... but be PRESENT in the time you spend with yourself !! Reflect... get to know who you really are. Challenge yourself...

I would now like to end this yet random blog with a quote from my favorite author Paulo Coelho:

"The more you understand yourself, the more you will understand the world" (from his book Brida)

ps. For all those who are wondering... Insomnia ... still with me