What I meant to write and what I'm going to write are different things. When I woke up at quarter after one in the morning I was stiff, sore, and fearful. I wanted vengeance and protection from my ex, I let my mind go down the fear ladder which is a concept I learned about from the Thom Rutledge in his book 'Embracing Fear'. The idea behind the fear ladder is your initial emotion is hiding something larger and deeper that needs to be faced and explored. For some reason I kept thinking about The Blue Door. Apart from my stay at a psychiatric facility I have rarely felt totally and completely safe. I felt threatened at every level and issues like the car situation are a smaller manifestation of the kinds of protection I lacked. I was led to believe I had car insurance in March when the January bill had never been paid.
A couple of people in my family are upset that I am in this situation since I know that my ex is irresponsible and immature. Other friends of mine have pointed out the need for me to be independent so things like this don't happen again. The policy was in his name so I never saw the cancellation notice. During March he said he was redoing car insurance, he said I would have to find my own policy which was fine with me. I asked him to let me know when my time of grace was up and he said that he would. In my mind January's bill had been paid and I was covered through July since we were billed semi-monthly. I'm not going to beat myself up for this, he played a dirty trick on me and I was foolish and naive enough to fall for it. This is the kind of thing I would never do so the idea of a scam never occurred to me. I'm just now realizing I was married to a con artist and I'll never be able to think the way that he does, my mind just doesn't work that way.
The good news is that I'm a lot more optimistic than I was yesterday when I was still in shock. Being car free is not the worst thing in the world. I'm sure there will be weather to contend with, I'll miss having a car, but hopefully I can get the job at the coffee shop and be able to bike or walk to work which will be good for me on every level. A neighbor of mine is a former professional cyclist, I can tap into her knowledge, and maybe once I get a job I'll be able to save up for a car if I feel like I need one again. Being in situations that are perceived as negative shows me who my friends are and the best thing about this experience has been the support I've received from people I know. I contributed to this problem and it's up to me to put together a strategy that frees me from these types of consequences in the future.
Yesterday I called the place where I normally take my car to see if they would be interested in it for parts. I also called several salvage companies to see what I could get. Those calls weren't too promising, I haven't heard back from any of the salvage yards, but the first call I missed this morning was the son of the man who owns the car repair company I used. He said that the first thing he wondered when he heard the message was whether I was okay. After assuring him that I was I asked how he was doing. His wife left him and took their three daughters, he's unemployed and staying at his father's other shop with little other than a car to his name. He's a super sweet guy, we had a chat about our respective situations, it was really good to talk to him despite our current plights. I believe in him and am really glad we had a chance to reconnect despite the grimness surrounding the call.
Another positive has been other books I've been reading and checked out from the library. I used to be a big reader and gradually let that fall to the wayside for whatever reason, probably the fact that I didn't feel like I could sit on the couch in my own living room with a book. I sat up reading after I woke up in the middle of the night, that was another really good thing since I learned a lot about fear, grieving, mourning, and how the brain responds to traumatic situations like the ones I've endured. I have to travel to the center of those emotions and really feel them rather than dismissing them the way I have in the past. It isn't pretty, but behind the tears, fears, and rejection is hope and healing. I want and need that for myself so I'm going to start doing more of that today.