My Journey With Health And Fitness -When Things Go Wrong

Went out for an hour long walk this morning. I only found only one small section of sidewalk that hadn’t been cleared which was pretty good. However, I quickly realized people are not salting meaning there was some black ice happening. There were some spots where I was doing some slipping and sliding but managed to get through it.

I had a fantastic week last week. I was at Harrison Hot Springs for a labour school. I was asked to facilitate a shop steward level 2 class which I have done many times in the past. These classes are usually participants for a variety of unions and this year was no different. What was different was how awesome these participants were. I’m not kidding when I say it was the best class I have ever facilitated. We even finished off with a discussion on political action and while none of us seemed to be on the same page, everyone felt safe to express their opinions which I thought was fantastic.

I was happy that we hit the road to come home at about 11:00am which should have put us in White Rock around 12:30pm leaving plenty of time to get unpacked and do aa few things around the house. After about 45 minutes of driving we did a quick stop for gas and continued on. Then, suddenly, my SUV started to lose power and it was sputtering. Fortunately this happened near an exit off the freeway and a large mall parking lot was right around the corner. As I was pulling into a parking space I checked my dashboard and the temperature gauge was in the red! What the hell? I just had the water pump replaced a week ago and I did as my mechanic said and checked the fluids before I hit the road and everything looked fine.

I am the type of person who prepares for emergencies so I have a BCAA membership (for my American friends it is the same as AAA). I had joined nearly 2 decades ago when I was doing a lot of traveling with my vehicle throughout the southern part of our province. And, because I went to many rural areas I made sure I upgraded from the basic so that if my vehicle broke down they would tow it up to 160 km (100 miles). So I call BCAA and the agent was great at sorting out where we were and ordering the tow to my mechanic. She said her system was saying a 3 hour wait but since there were only 5 jobs ahead of us she didn’t think it would take that long. Unfortunately she was wrong and we waited for pretty much 3 hours. When the tow truck arrived (it was actually one of those large flatbed trucks) he didn’t have enough room for both my sister and I in the cab. However, with some strategic moving of items we all managed to fit and off we went.

By time we got home we were 4 hours behind schedule between loading the vehicle, driving to the mechanic’s, unloading the vehicle and going over everything it took another hour. We had also previously made arrangements to have a visit with our next door neighbour and we were late for that. Of course it was Valentine’s Day so we had dinner plans which we did make but there was a lot of rushing going on.

My husband would tell you that I am not good when things do not go as I planned. I actually usually get extremely anxious as I am not the go with the flow kind of person. And yet yesterday I was okay. Yes, I had expected a very different kind of day but I didn’t have any control over the vehicle breaking down like that. Other than being anxious at the beginning and realizing I didn’t have my BCAA membership card with me I managed to keep pretty calm. I’m not sure if it was because I was coming off a really good week or because I am just in a better head space but I was patient and ok the entire 4 hours. I had a nice glass of wine with the neighbour and a great dinner and evening with my husband and sister. I guess it also might be that as I get older I don’t see the point in panicking.

So, when things go wrong I think I am going to try to handle it like I did yesterday, stay calm and patient and be thankful that no one was hurt or ill, it’s just life throwing a curve ball.