A Gentle Warning

Over the past few months, if not year, I've been frustrated in my attempts to get work on a full-time basis, for various reasons, and I have felt a bit demoralized. Sometimes I'm not good enough, sometimes I'm overqualified and they are afraid I would up and leave, sometimes it was not even worth sending in an application because I didn't have the right skills. Sometimes it seemed as though I am not trying hard enough.

In any case, it's been very depressing and demoralizing, and the lack of funds has also impacted on my family: my wife (though separated) and my daughter. And I selfishly wonder if the best thing to do is hope for an accident that would kill me, and allow them to collect on my decent life insurance policy (whatever else goes on, I make sure that gets paid). And of course, quite pettily, I think that they would be better off in that case, selfishly ignoring the reality that a beatnik, fiscally strapped daddy is better than a dead one.

Well, last night, for some reason, I was thinking of these things as I drove up Delaware Avenue to my apartment on Elm Street, past the Price Chopper, through the light at Elm, past the laundromat and right onto Jefferson. I was driving at a safe speed, past the dirt bar, past some houses, and then before me, almost too quickly, an Albany police car is backing into the street.

I did not realize that there was ice on the street until I tried to brake, and that failed - I skidded instead, and I tried to swerve, but ended up colliding with the cruiser, my front left corner of my car meeting his rear right corner. Plastic bumper, reflectors, other debris all over the place. I also hit a stationary van in the corner of its rear left bumper.

Dumb fucking luck to get into a car accident with a police cruiser!

This story is not about the logistics of it all, who was right (me), who was wrong (him), etc. It is about realizing that I need to be rethink my priorities. This was an accident, and I tried to avoid it, but it could have been worse. Or it could have happened elsewhere, and I could have been hit. And I still can...at any time...it happened to my dad's brother. It happened to my stepfather.

Sometimes I am not sure if there is a god...at least not the type of entity that takes an interest in our daily lives at such a micro level. I am sure, or at least I want to interpret it as such, that a message was sent to me, regarding all that talk of death and life insurance and being more valuable to my daughter dead.

I think I got it.

And I should be careful about what I wish for...I might get it next time.