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Sunday, December 11, 2011

The Nerve of ... Life!

   Over the summer, my parents and I had looked for a suitable first car for the occasion of my 16th birthday. On September 9th, my high school football team lost to our long time rival ... after the loss, my dad picked me up in a brand new (to me) Honda Civic '99. I was ofcourse shocked and very excited; imagining all the new freedoms this car would bring to my life ... little did I know then how that car would really affect my life. My dad and I were still in Bakersfield and we decided why not go see a movie. We bought tickets for a
 10 o'clock showing of The Help around 9-ish, then we bought our pop-corn and Coke ...when we turned in our ticket stubs the lady said that she couldnt let us in yet, so being right by the mall my father took me to Forever 21. On the way over, in the car, I spilt Coke all over my white cheer uniform. Being washable, I just changed into my cheer sweats and compleatly forgot about the stain. In Forever 21, my dad and I had selected a few shirts and at the check out we made small talk with the cashier. We talked about how rediculose it is that some people just steal things and have no guilt.
    We left for the theater and as we were leaving the car I asked "Did you lock the car ?" "Yep."dad said.  
  I laughed "Who would want this hunk of junk anyways?", then for the oddest reason I was compelled to say " But if someone does steal it, Pay It Forward."
     We made it to the movie on time and enjoyed it, even though we were both very tired. When we came out to where we had parked our car my dad and I both stoped and looked at each other , " We did park the car here ... right ?" dad asked, I asured him that we did. As reality sunk in I felt a sudden mixture of feelings. 
I felt panic and stress; anxiety and wonder of how some one could do something like this. Then I had the most overwhelming realization at that moment: all of my cheer things were inside of the car, as well as the new clothes. As my dad was talking to the mall cop I was in complete shock; out of every car in that parking lot, why mine ? Out of every car in that parking lot, why not mine ?  We filed a report with the police, who we were on hold with for a very long time. We called my uncle around 1am and asked him if he could pick us up. As my dad and I waited outside of a Target (as it was the most lit up parking lot), I noticed a single cockroach scampering across the entire Target parking lot. I mean this thing would not give up; it went back and forth, all the way from the dimlit area of the parking lot back over to the bench my dad and I were laying on. Given that cockroaches are said to be able to run 12 feet in 1 second, how coul this not be entertaining to me? Anyways, alongwith my creepy-comic-relief of the night, my dad and I watched heat lightening in the distance light up the sky compleatly with each strike.
   At 3:30am my uncle arrived and we finally were on our way home. The next morning my dad woke me up and said that there was good, bad, and worse news; the bad news was our car had been stolen(haha), the good news was my mom had talked to my coaches and they worked something out for my extreamly expensive uniform. Then came the worse news; "All of that lightening last night caused fires all around us, we will problly need to evacuate."
The evacuation is a whole other story in itself which I honestly do not feel like getting into; but I will say what I learned from that weeked of Great Disappointment.
  From those two days I had a glimpse of how some peoples lifes are.
I was finally someone who had crap happen to them (not that I really crave that, but...). I now have a little bit more insight of life and the reason why I truly can not surrvive without God in my life.
Now as far as possessions go, I realized that I put wayyyyyyy to much worth in my house and simple meaningless trinkets that I held some meaning too.
In that action-packed period of Disappointment, I was put to the test of trusting the Lord my God with EVERYTHING I have and EVERYTHING I am. I definatly can not say that I got a 100%, but I can say that what I learned I will never take for granted.



A really bad picture of Trent

~~ So, by the way... my cars name is Trent, and yes he is doing pretty well for his condition in our mechanic, Carlos', garage:) ...The police called us in November and told us that they had found him!... happy...late...sweet 16 Savannah! ... ohh sooo swweet .

A really small gathering of my 16th birthday :)