Roller Coaster

I am a huge fan of roller coasters, I still want to go to Vegas just for the chance to ride the one on top of the Stratosphere building, and the other one too. A little over a month ago, I rode the one at Disney’s California Adventures and it was pretty good. The scarier, the better; if I didn’t throw-up or die (which I never have from a ride) I sure wanna feel like I should have.

The big metal or wood colossuses...colossi... (not sure which it should be because spell check isn’t flagging either one and I don’t feel like looking it up, beside, I’ve heard it both ways). Anyway, the big monstrosities of impending doom are the kind of roller coasters I enjoy. I’m not so much of a fan of the emotional type, and in some ways the last few weeks before I moved were like a big roller coaster. The good kind of roller coaster that clinked slowly to build your anticipation, dropped you with your lungs trying to catch up, went up side down, cork-screwed zzzzzzzzzzz (those are from trying to get a piece of dust of my keyboard and I’m keeping them...) and did everything else possible to get your adrenaline spiked. The bad kind of roller coaster because it was emotional, and feelingy, and, you know, emotional, but I would rate it pretty high for content...

Two main factors were at play during this carnival attraction that is my life, time and money (I would say three, but my car and job both boil down to money).

To back up just a little bit, I had made a very foolish purchasing decision on a car in September. To be able to move, I needed to sell my car because I could not afford to live in NY, i.e. pay rent, and make car and insurance payments. Also, I would need to work to be able to pay bills, so to move I just needed to at least get a transfer to go through so I would have full-time employment when I got to NY. In February I started working on both situations to get things coordinated for moving.

OK, fast-forward through other details that may be good for another story but just make this one too long. The week when I leave Oklahoma was crazy hectic. Monday, start my last week of work at my store, hang out with friends, try to get packed and freaked out because no car sold yet although there was a nibble, but good news, my transfer is going through. (OK one detail skipped was the job transfer was like a soap-opera romance for the past three months, on-again-off-again-ad-infinitum). Tuesday was more of the same, just wasn’t certain on the whole car thing yet.

For a while, when people would ask me about my car, they wanted to know what I would do if it didn’t sell. I would tell everyone that I didn’t know, but the real answer was, I wouldn’t actually be able to move. Period. But I had prayed about it and knew moving was something I needed to do, so I continued on as if it was sold. I had no back-up plan. So Wednesday rolls around and my car sells to this really nice couple I found on craigslist, for what I needed to sell it for. Two days to spare. It was a rolaids moment if ever there was one. Then I go to my last service at Southwest, my church of eleven years.

Then Thursday rolls around, and with less than 48 hours until I leave, I learn that while Im getting the transfer, I will only get part time, lose my benefits with no guaranteed number of hours. Don’t know if that means God wants me to stay or if there is a better job here that will give me greater opportunity to serve in the church. I still haven’t figured that one out yet.

Friday is a long day and as I wrap up my radio and place it on the charger for my next day of work, it hits me: I’m leaving the store, and people I have worked side by side with for nearly seven years, and for some people almost eleven years. I pack for a trip to Idaho to see my little sister get married, go to a prayer meeting for the men at church and fly out Saturday morning.

During the week of the wedding, I just need to coordinate the last details of the trip and move while my roommate finds an apartment in NY. When I contact a friend who was helping me with funds for the moving vehicle, I learn the man who was going to pay for part or most of it had his house destroyed in a tornado. I felt bad. Then I felt worse for feeling bad about myself before feeling bad about a generous man (who having never met me, was going to help me move) losing his home. I’m not proud, but it is so easy to think of our selves and our problems, however small they may be, before thinking a lick about another person.

Flying into Oklahoma after the wedding on Monday night, I have very little time to finish going through my stuff and packing. The two-and-a-half hour flight delay didn’t help all that much. Then, all of the people I had lined up to help me finish with the packing and loading of the truck bailed on me. Tuesday morning, all of the places where I needed to do last minute errands opened later than I thought they should have, and nothing was going according to plan.

Then to top it all off, as I’m walking in to Bank of America to take care of one final errand, a bird flies out of a tree and hits me in the head. No joke, a bird hit me in the head. I guess it could have pooped on me, but still, it hit me. Candace laughed a little, but she didn’t actually see it. I wasn’t finding it all that funny at the moment, but it is kinda funny that on a day when nothing was going right, I got hit by a bird. I guess the humor lies more it the fact that getting hit in the head by a bird, was the best part of a 24-hour period of time.