Have you ever had a day that was out of sorts and when you look back, you think, “If only I did this one thing another way, the whole day would have turned out differently?”
I’ve been hearing from people that it’s been a rough Mercury retrograde, and although we’re out of it officially, the shadow period still lingers a couple more weeks from when Mercury goes direct. So we can still feel like we’re in Mercury retrograde until April 16.
I got caught in some of the maelstrom when Mercury retrograde affected someone in the classic way, and that created a chain of events for me that resulted in what I considered a bad or unlucky day.
But if you believe that in the universe, nothing is wasted, and that ultimately we can learn from lessons, or that we play roles for one another, whether directly or indirectly, in ways we’ll never know sometimes, then there are no unlucky or bad days. There are just opportunities to create new energy, new chapters.
Perhaps your Higher Self is pushing you through a door to another place of growth, as a result of something that happened to you in life that you’re not thrilled about. Sometimes we should turn things on its head, take a different perspective, rather than being on the negative side of things, as life has a darker and lighter side. It’s about choosing to be on the lighter side and having a higher vibrational energy.
It’s easiest to stay in the lower vibrational energy such as fear, anger, despair, which many of us are used to energetically, so when we try to raise our energy to a higher level, it feels different, foreign even. All the more reason to try to see the lighter side of things and stay in that vibrational energy more, so that it will be like our default position, rather than the negative vibe we’ve been used to.
The chain of events that got me thinking about this, started when I was going to meet someone at their place of business, far across town. It was out of my way, and by the time I almost got there, I found out the assistant booked someone else before we made our plans, so I had to be turned away. It changed my whole day. I had my regular myofunctional therapy appointment that was hours later and I couldn’t move it up, so I was able to book a last minute annual physical exam instead. I stayed there for a second annual test that had been scheduled for later in the month elsewhere, since I was already there. And I went to run an errand at the market I usually go to, where I realized when I got back to the car, I forgot to return an item. I was tired and wanted to be on my way, so I sat in the car for a second to think about going in or now, but chose to leave the lot and return the item another time.
I was waiting to leave the lot behind a car that I later found out was being driven by college-aged student who had just recently come to the country and it seemed like he was going to the local college. He had two pretty blond gals in his car, who looked also like students and were also from another foreign country, as their English all seemed limited. Later when I told this story to a neighbor, he tried to lighten the mood by saying something like, “Well, yeah, that could be distracting for the driver.”
This car suddenly decided not to leave the lot out to what was a very busy street, and instead, reversed back up the ramp and hit my tire with his bumper. I didn’t have time to honk because it happened to fast. He said he saw me but he thought I was farther away. The gals got out and wiped the dust from his bumper, but my quarter panel was cracked and later when I drove back, I realized the whole car was veering in one direction. The force was so hard, it cracked the knuckle.
The first thing I said to the kid, who didn’t seem to know what insurance was, since he didn’t show it from his glove compartment, was that, “They don’t make this car anymore.” And when old cars aren’t made anymore, whatever used parts are out there are limited, and more expensive. Since then the insurance company has been leaving him messages, even with a translator, to get his insurance information. That day I gave him the choice if he wanted to go through insurance or not, and I didn’t realize the entire alignment was off until we drove away. I thought it was just a crack that could be glued on the quarter panel, only to find out it’s a larger job even on the quarter panel. It’s curious, since the student comes from a country that prides itself on respect and honor and doing the right thing, that the next morning when I called from the mechanic to let him know what was going on, before he decided to go through insurance, he suggested I should pay for half since his bumper was also affected (it only got dust on it), which he was trying to say in his limited English, even though he hit my tire and my car wasn’t even moving. When I told my mechanic this, he said, “Well, your tire couldn’t have hit his bumper.”
Hopefully the kid will do the right thing. But I couldn’t help but wonder, “Why did this have to happen to my car?” I’ve been in that parking lots hundreds of times and it’s always been uneventful. I kept thinking that we never know what roles we play for other people. Since he hasn’t called my insurance company back to give his insurance information, it can be simply that this was meant to help him learn responsibility, as much as it upsets me that my car was self-sacrificed for someone else’s life lesson.
As I’ve been trying to be a glass-half-full person, I was grateful though that the car wasn’t in the shop as long as it could have been, and that the insurance adjuster who told me she was backed up with 18 other calls she had to see before me, was able to squeeze my car in the next morning, so I was able to have the car fixed quickly, with a used knuckle located without leaving the car over a whole weekend.
On that Friday afternoon, just as I was about to leave to pick up the car, the insurance adjuster rang to let me know how much my car was worth and the damage was below what it was worth. Another thing I was really thankful for, not having to make my car labeled “totaled” or “salvaged.” Some cars are priceless for what it’s worth emotionally to the owner, and this was one of those cars, even though it’s monetary worth was low. I was thankful for the people in the Claims department, which I would’ve assumed would be banal jobs at call centers, but I realized they deal with people often in a crisis moment, and I was thankful with the help they were able to give me.
I had to chuckle and thought it was synchronicity when both my mechanic and auto body guy suggested separately that I put a smiley face sticker on the front quarter panel crack. When I told my insurance adjuster that story, she laughed heartily. As I left the auto body shop thinking about the large cost of how he would fix the crack, I drove by a corporate collision place to see what they would charge, and as I pulled into the drive through, the guy comes out, smiling when he saw my car, not seeing the crack in front of him, saying, “I haven’t seen this car in this good condition in years! Are you the original owner?” It made my day he didn’t notice the car’s imperfection now, even though it would make me sad every time I saw the crack.
Later, I got caught up in the unpleasant situation, when I kept going over everything with the woulda-shoulda-coulda’s. I was describing what happened to my myofunctonal therapist, that if only I went back into the market to return the item, I would have missed the whole situation, or if I had my normal routine seeing her that day, or not had the second annual medical test and kept my original appointment at the other facility, none of this would have happened.
She said, “You sound like my parents when they used to go to the racetrack! You can’t go back.” It was a waste to go over the woulda-shoulda-coulda’s. I have no choice but to move forward and fix the front quarter panel sometime later when I have extra money to do so, and be thankful insurance was able to pay for the extensive damage it took on the alignment and that we found a knuckle for the car.
While I don’t know why my car was meant to be hit sitting there in the parking lot that day for as many days as I’ve shopped there, I can only hope if it was a life lesson for that other person’s growth, that he’ll learn whatever lesson his Higher Self chose to go through. I can only rely on the fact that nothing is wasted in the Universe, everything has a reason, and roles are played out for lessons that we might never see or know about. That there are no unlucky days. Just our perception of that day.
But I probably will take a break from that parking lot for a while. Luckily, the market has another location just up the street.