We must never forget that the\u00a0highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them\u00a0– – –\u00a0<\/p>\n
John Fitzgerald Kennedy<\/p>\n
I was driving on the 10 freeway going\u00a0west toward Santa Monica on my way to the dentist when I looked to my left and\u00a0a huge truck was getting too close to me. The driver crossed the line into my\u00a0lane and I steered as far to the right as possible. He kept coming. I felt a\u00a0hard bump, the car jostled, I heard a bang, and then a loud scratching sound as\u00a0the truck made contact with the side of my car. It got louder, it was metal on\u00a0metal as the truck driver scraped the entire left side of my car all the way from\u00a0the back to the front. I beeped my horn, holding the steering wheel as tightly\u00a0as I could and the truck began to head back into his own lane. But it wasn\u2019t\u00a0over. I don\u2019t know what his problem was when he crossed my lane again and butted his truck against my car. There was that same metal crunching sound as it\u00a0repeated its trajectory, ruining the entire side of my car.<\/p>\n
I was trying to figure out how to\u00a0get to the shoulder so he and I could exchange information. But he slowed down\u00a0until I was well ahead of him and pulled into my lane several cars behind me. I\u00a0couldn\u2019t see his license plate or the make of his truck as he sped down the next
off ramp. That was the last I saw of him.<\/p>\n
I was uttering some sort of moaning\u00a0sounds as I white-knuckled the steering wheel until I got to the Lincoln Boulevard\u00a0exit. I got off the freeway and drove to the dentist\u2019s office, listening for sputtering
engine sounds or the bumping of a flat tire. Nothing. I parked and got out of\u00a0my car to take a look. He had completely mangled the side of my car and the side\u00a0mirror but the tires and the engine were intact. \u00a0<\/p>\n
I went to my dentist appointment in\u00a0a daze. When it was over, I took the side streets home. I had a load of things\u00a0to do (with a frozen mouth) but I was surprisingly calm as I focused on the\u00a0steps in front of me. File the insurance claim. Take a dozen photographs of the
damage and download them for the estimate. Go to the body shop. Get a car\u00a0rental. I walked through it all step by step, and by 4 PM, I was back home with\u00a0a filed clam and an Audi loaner. I felt good about being so efficient and I was\u00a0okay for the rest of the day and the one after that. But on the third day, I\u00a0began to feel anxious. Every time I thought about the accident, I played worst\u00a0case scenarios in my head. What if I had sustained a bad injury? What if I had\u00a0rear-ended the car in front of me hurt a child? What if I had died?<\/p>\n
I called a friend whom I consider a\u00a0wise woman and told her all about it. She listened carefully like she always\u00a0did. “I could have died,\u201d I said for the\u00a0third time. \u201cI feel afraid and anxious.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so sorry that happened to\u00a0you,\u201d she said. \u201cIt must have been really upsetting and scary but I think you\u2019re]\u00a0putting yourself through some unnecessary angst here. You were okay for a\u00a0couple of days but it seems like now, you\u2019re making up stories that are scaring
you. The thing is that\u2019s it\u2019s over and you didn\u2019t get hurt. It\u2019s painful to focus\u00a0on what might have happened. It\u2019s no wonder you\u2019re anxious. You\u2019re using up a\u00a0lot of energy telling yourself about bad things that didn\u2019t happen. And you\u2019re suffering\u00a0as if they did.\u201d<\/p>\n
There it was again, one of my\u00a0toughest challenges in so many parts of my life. Telling myself scary stories\u00a0and feeling badly because I believe them. Instead of freaking myself out, it\u00a0would serve me better to appreciate the fact that I\u2019m okay. My car wasn\u2019t\u00a0totaled. My insurance is covering most of it. I have a body shop that I trust\u00a0and I can rent a car.<\/p>\n
I know this is a personal\u00a0preference, but I\u2019m tired of hearing the word \u201cgratitude.\u201d I know it means\u00a0something positive but it\u2019s been so overused, it makes me cringe. Like \u201cnew\u00a0age.\u201d Or \u201cthe Universe.\u201d These expressions seem to have taken on generic\u00a0meanings that remove all the true meaning from them. I\u2019d rather use the word
\u201cappreciation.\u201d To me, it\u2019s about treasuring, prizing, cherishing, valuing and being\u00a0receptive when good things come my way instead of shutting down. Choosing to\u00a0benefit from life\u2019s lessons and wishing for others to benefit from them, too.\u00a0Feeling relieved that terrible things haven\u2019t happened instead of imagining the\u00a0worst. There\u2019s enough hard stuff going on in the world without fabricating\u00a0more.<\/p>\n
\u00a0One of the rewards I get from writing is viewing things though a different lens. A more appreciative one. I\u2019ve been telling the true stories of my past on the page lately, and I appreciate all that I\u2019ve gone through and come out the other side. I appreciate the extraordinary teachers that have come into my life along the way. My sister. My friends who love me. I appreciate my strength when I deal with unpleasant things. The way I nurtured myself when I left home at a young age. Finding the courage to train hard every day for many years to follow and accomplish my dreams of being a ballerina. Getting out of an abusive relationship when it became dangerous. Taking care of myself when I was ill and going out of my way to be there for others when I can help. Appreciation is an invitation to value who you are and all that you do.<\/p>\n
Pema Chodron says, \u201cOne can\u00a0appreciate and celebrate each moment \u2013 there is nothing more sacred. There\u2019s\u00a0nothing more vast or absolute. In fact, there is nothing more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We must never forget that the\u00a0highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them\u00a0– – –\u00a0 John Fitzgerald Kennedy I was driving on the 10 freeway going\u00a0west toward Santa Monica on my way to the dentist when I looked to my left and\u00a0a huge truck was getting too close to me. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2537,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2536\/revisions\/2537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}