"Row, row, row your boat...."

This song was stuck in my head this afternoon.  I was outside pulling weeds in the backyard on a rare sunny and warm April day in Oregon.  I haven't heard the song in probably years, but I found myself singing it.

So why, you ask, was "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" rattling around my noggin?

When I was 15 years old, I crashed a nearby neighbor's car into the fence of their front yard.  We were living in a rural area with dirt roads and few houses.  Their son had come over to our place, and offered to let me drive back to his.  I did fine driving the 1/2 mile from my house to theirs, but I took the corner into their driveway too fast, and smashed their family station-wagon into the steel tube fence by their front gate.  It's the type of fence you see in horse stables, if you've ever been around one.  Heavy, sturdy, and unforgiving.  I didn't total the car, but it was bad enough that they couldn't drive it for weeks.  And I hit the fence hard enough that, as tough as it was, I still broke it in several areas.

Being profoundly short of cash--we pretty much lived paycheck to paycheck growing up--I had nothing but apologies to offer the neighbors.  I gave them every last dollar I had ( I want to say it was around 40 bucks--a fortune for me at that time), and promised to work off the rest.  And I didn't tell my parents what happened.  I went to bed owning some of the worst emotions of guilt & regret I'd ever had in my short life up to that point.  I woke up several times that night wishing that the whole thing had been a dream, but facing the realization each time I woke that it was real, and I couldn't change it.
Wishing that life was "but a dream" at that moment--a bad dream.

That's how I've felt the last couple of days.  I've become aware of things that are directly out of my deepest fears, my worst dreams, but are in fact very, painfully, real.  I woke up several times last night--truthfully I was awake more than I slept--with images playing in my head that I can't shake.  And like that 15 year-old me, I longed desperately for it to not have been true each time I woke.

So as I was pulling weeds and picking up fallen and dried out pine cones, wishing that life was "but a dream."  But nothing merrily merrily merrily about it this week.

I was partially responsible for crashing this "car" too.  I know that.  I hit a turn in life that I hadn't had enough "driver's ed" to be able to handle.  And the fence wasn't ready either.

The last few days have been probably the worst emotionally, personally, mentally, that I've ever experienced.  It's going to take me time to get past it.  Thanks to those I've already spoken to in the last couple of days, and thanks in advance to those that I know will help me if/when I do reach out to you.

 I'm going slower behind the wheel now, especially the last couple of months, but I still take some corners a little too tight, and do some damage.  If you're one of the fences I crash into--I'm sorry.  Please know I'm not intentionally aiming at you.  Just trying to learn how to drive better than the 15 year-old me.