Well slide a finger in me and call me a Chinese trap, it’s great to have you here. And hey, it’s great to be here. Finger in me or not, I’m just grateful to be alive and well. I got in a gnarly car accident and then got a brutal case of COVID two days later, so it wasn’t an ideal couple of weeks. Nothing like losing your job, your health, and your transportation all at the same time. Looks like I’ve got nothing to do but sit here in my misery, Jimmy!
Anyways, that has all come and gone and I’m on to the next chapter of my life. Speaking of come, DID YOU SEE THAT NEW PICTURE OF KIM KARDASHIAN!? I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t know if there was a new picture, but I assume there was, and Kim Kardashian is still alive. As long as Kim K is still alive there will be a new picture of her, so that reference is safe until the day she dies. Or I die. Oof. That’s my new goal in life. Just make it longer than Kim Kardashian. “What do you want out of life?” the wise sage asked the open mic comedian. “To watch Kim Kardashian die,” he said.
Oh, yes! Chapters of life. I recently read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and it was exactly what I needed. If you haven’t read it, you should read it. I don’t want to give anything away but it’s a story about following your destiny, and it’s phenomenal. Over the years I’ve been more aware of how things seem to fall into place when I’m doing what I feel I’m destined for, and how things seem to go off the rails when I’m not.
The first challenge is finding out what our destiny is. I think we can work backwards to figure it out as long as we’re paying attention. If it feels like we’re constantly butting our heads up against a wall and everything is a struggle and bad things seem to keep happening to us, we might not be on the right track. Maybe we’re stuck in a job that doesn’t allow us to do what we love. Maybe we’re in relationship that constricts us from pursuing a dream. Maybe we’re just being an asshole.
One thing I’ve learned in life is that terrible things will always happen. They’ll happen to you, they’ll happen to other people, it’s just part of being alive. How we react to them is what’s important. Do we choose to say “why me?” or “what can I learn from this?” Big big difference. Huge. Large cock different there, Patricia. We know you’re familiar with those, heyo!
All jokes aside, Patricia does love a giant dick. Okay really though, all jokes aside I’m grateful for the challenging and “bad” things that have happened to me because they’ve forced me to change in one way or another. I don’t know who said this, but somebody said something like “if you don’t listen to the universe and change what needs to be changed, it will force you to do so.” (Did I already write about this? I feel like I might have written about this. Forgive me if I have. Maybe I just told somebody about it. Either way, I’m continuing.)
That’s exactly how I feel about my accident and getting sick. I was getting away from being creative for some reason, I wasn’t getting on stage as much, I was just kind of coasting along driving for Uber and entertaining myself with my own anxiety. I knew I had to commit to comedy more. I knew I had to try and stop driving for Uber and pursue other avenues of income, but I didn’t. I ignored the signs, and there were plenty of them: flat tires, issues with my car (which was pretty much brand new), new or worsening symptoms that I didn’t call my doctor about…
Okay not the last one, that was a joke. But there were plenty of signs and I just kept ignoring them. So what happened? The universe forced me not to ignore them anymore. I got t-boned by a drunk driver in a Ford 150 going 40 MPH and my car went spinning around and around before it came to a stop somewhere between the sidewalk and a business building. To my shock, I didn’t have any serious injuries.
I didn’t understand the next series of events until I remembered that phrase: “if you don’t change, the universe will force you to.” During the accident, there was only one witness, who was an off duty police officer. For some reason, he claimed that I was at fault for running a yellow turning red and the other driver had a fresh green light. Not only was this not true (I just had a regular old green light), it straight up didn’t even make sense. Both of us were going full speed, nobody had a fresh anything.
Secondly, the other driver got a DUI. And his insurance still didn’t take liability because the police report (even though it was written as an opinion and not fact) didn’t put him at fault. Then my insurance said they wouldn’t cover it because I was driving for Uber at the time. So I went from zero deductible through his insurance, to $500 deductible through my insurance, to finally having to go through Uber’s insurance and paying a $2,500 deductible. Then I couldn’t work for three weeks, so that’s another $3,000 out the window. Tack on $500 of towing costs and I’m out a cool $6,000.
I also got extremely sick two days after the crash, so even if I wanted to drive with a rental for Uber I couldn’t. The universe wouldn’t let me drive and had me go broke. It forced me to start over. I had to look for freelance work online, I had to look for jobs, I had to do the things I told myself I was going to do but didn’t. And what happened? I got a job through my neighbor, I got work through Upwork, I started writing again. I had to ask people for help, which I’ve always struggled with. I had to hang out with my friends and give them a call, something I wasn’t doing enough. All of this forced me to do the things I needed to do but chose not to, and now I’m better for it.
Alright I gotta eat and go tell jokes, until next time Captain RabbitBalls.
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Sometimes something bad needs to happen for you to make a change for the better. I feel for you, it must have been a horrible ordeal.
Thanks for the kind words! On the up and up!