Broken Glass

So, today my adult life came crashing into my face... literally.

Last week, the two front windows on my Jeep rolled down but wouldn't roll back up. Jeeps are notorious for this defect, so I knew that it was only a matter of time. I taped the windows up and wedged some paper in the crack between the window and door to keep the windows up and buy some time until the weekend.

I woke up early Saturday morning to get to the mechanic in time to be back home for Football Saturday beginning at noon. I felt really good about finding a trustworthy mechanic (oxymoron?), that I knew wouldn't rip me off--too much, anyway.

Well, after he looked at the situation, he made some phone calls to the Jeep dealership and told me that it would cost around $850 to fix the windows. Really? FOR TWO WINDOWS?!

Needless to say, that's not in my budget as a school teacher. I don't know what profession that expense would be in, perhaps a doctor or lawyer, but not a Houston public school teacher. So, my plan was to put this on the backburner for another week and give me some time to figure out what I was going to do.

Today, I went to the grocery store during the monsoon of a rainstorm we had, happy that the tape on my windows was holding them up. When I came back to my car, I noticed the rain had stopped, but once inside my car, I found water on the center console... and the dash, and the passenger's seat, and the glove box. The window had fallen while I was in the store, apparently before the rain had stopped.

No big deal. I had a towel in the backseat, so I cleaned everything up and dumped the water from the floormat on the ground and went home.

After dinner, my plan was to pull my window back up and reapply tape to hold it there. Apparently, the window must have cracked when it fell into the door, because as soon as I got my fingers around the top of the window to pull it up, it shattered into a million pieces.

Really? Did that just happen? Indeed, it did.

I'm reminded of some really sage advice Mandy Marable gave me one time about how life is not about work-life balance, because it doesn't exist. In her words, "it's more of an ebb-and-flow."

I'm beginning to realize this holds true between my work life and personal life. Right when I finally feel that I've gotten into a comfortable spot with my work life, my personal life has a catastrophe.

Granted, it could be a lot worse. At least my car wasn't broken into like was the case with one of my friends who parked his car in front of our house overnight. At least my family members and friends are all in good health.

Still, having no windows sucks right now. Good thing I can carpool with my roommate to work and park my Jeep in the garage for the week.