life still sucks, updated
My car has been declared totaled, which surprises me not at all since I had a feeling it was going to get declared totaled after I spoke to the claims adjuster yesterday. I am waiting for a call back from my insurance company telling me how much they are going to pay out for the car, which will then dictate how much I can put down on a new or new-to-me car and then I have to figure out what kind of car payment Morgan and I can afford. I'd love a 2014 Mazda3 hatchback, but realistically that may not be possible. I do plan on getting a Mazda3, though, and a hatchback if I can swing it, the question is just what year and what options I can afford. I loved my 2007 Mazda3--it wasn't my favorite car I've ever had, that still goes to my Saturn SC 2 coupe (tiny plastic car but I loved it to pieces), but it was definitely in second place, and I think the Saturn still wins because I drove that car all over the East Coast and had a lot of good memories associated with it. The Saturn was light enough that when I drove it on I-95 it would get buffeted by the backwash from the tractor trailers, and when someone else was in the passenger seat I could feel the difference in how it drove, but man, I loved that car.
So this is the fourth car I've totaled in my sixteen years of driving, which is kind of horrifying, but here's what happened in those cases:
1. Two days before my 18th birthday, I was driving my mom's 1990 Camry. The roads were really slick, I braked too hard, lost control of the car and slammed into a telephone pole. I broke a front axle on the car, and since it had front wheel drive and was also eight years old, they totaled it. I was okay, I think maybe I had whiplash. No one else was involved although I did knock over a couple gravestones as the pole I hit was in a cemetery.
2. My Saturn committed suicide on the NJ Turnpike. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. What happened was I was driving home from MD and blew a tire. I didn't realize I'd blown a tire, and I didn't know enough to know how to handle the car in that situation, so I braked. This is, for reference, not the right thing to do--the right thing is to ease off the gas and gradually slow down and get over to the shoulder. I braked, lost control of the car and slammed into the median. I had a bad case of whiplash and the car was a writeoff.
3. At midnight, while leaving work after a very, very long day, I accidentally drove my Camry (a 98; this was the one that replaced the 1990 Camry) into a cement pillar in the parking structure. I managed to drive it home, but it turned out I had bent the frame, and that's expensive to fix...so they totaled the car. The 98 Camry was the car my dad and I drove cross-country when I moved to WA, for the record; my car at the time was actually a Mazda Protege, but it was a lease and I wasn't the leasee, so I couldn't take it with me. My dad kept the Mazda until its lease was up and then got himself a Lexus, which he still has. My mom replaced her 1998 Camry with a 2005 Camry, which my dad sold earlier this year in exchange for the Toyota Sienna wheelchair van they have now. My mom has a fondness for Toyotas, can you tell? :)
4. And now the 2007 Mazda3, which I really did love and will miss and crap, there was a ton of stuff in that car I'm going to have to figure out how to get home somehow. I definitely want another Mazda3--the 6 is too big, I prefer smaller cars, but I want the hatchback. I wanted the hatchback when I bought the 07, but I couldn't afford it. I don't know what I can afford now, which is aggravating, so we'll see what happens.
The anxiety is still problematic, and I called my doctor's office this morning to say "Hey, the clonidine kind of sucks, what else can I do?" because I didn't want to go through the whole weekend feeling this anxious. They called me back an hour later and said Dr. L was writing me a scrip for propranolol, which is another blood pressure medication also used to treat migraines and other things. I am...not thrilled about the use of BP medication because my BP is fine (I average about 110/70 or less) but my psychiatrist is out of town until Tuesday and my current meds aren't doing enough to manage the anxiety, so I'll stick with the propranolol for a few days and see how it treats me. I am less anxious right now than I expected to be but I think getting some definitive news about the car helped, even if it wasn't what I wanted to hear. (Or maybe it was; hey, new car is exciting, and mine was six years old. Even though Morgan really should have gotten the next new car in our family, and I still feel guilty about that. Maybe next year he can get a new car.)
So that's life around here. Morgan and I were trying to figure out when we could go to the dealer and talk about cars but realized we have to wait for the check from State Farm before we can do anything, so that makes life a bit easier as I can't really get to the dealer before Thursday unless we go tomorrow morning. Gotta love my work schedule. Sigh. But I'll be glad to get back to work; I essentially lost a week for this accident, and I feel insanely guilty about it.
Thanks for all the hugs and good wishes - I am definitely on the mend and doing better, I promise, and I should be back to full capacity in a few days or less.
This entry was originally posted at http://blueraccoon.dreamwidth.org/1202350.html. Please comment there. |
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So this is the fourth car I've totaled in my sixteen years of driving, which is kind of horrifying, but here's what happened in those cases:
1. Two days before my 18th birthday, I was driving my mom's 1990 Camry. The roads were really slick, I braked too hard, lost control of the car and slammed into a telephone pole. I broke a front axle on the car, and since it had front wheel drive and was also eight years old, they totaled it. I was okay, I think maybe I had whiplash. No one else was involved although I did knock over a couple gravestones as the pole I hit was in a cemetery.
2. My Saturn committed suicide on the NJ Turnpike. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. What happened was I was driving home from MD and blew a tire. I didn't realize I'd blown a tire, and I didn't know enough to know how to handle the car in that situation, so I braked. This is, for reference, not the right thing to do--the right thing is to ease off the gas and gradually slow down and get over to the shoulder. I braked, lost control of the car and slammed into the median. I had a bad case of whiplash and the car was a writeoff.
3. At midnight, while leaving work after a very, very long day, I accidentally drove my Camry (a 98; this was the one that replaced the 1990 Camry) into a cement pillar in the parking structure. I managed to drive it home, but it turned out I had bent the frame, and that's expensive to fix...so they totaled the car. The 98 Camry was the car my dad and I drove cross-country when I moved to WA, for the record; my car at the time was actually a Mazda Protege, but it was a lease and I wasn't the leasee, so I couldn't take it with me. My dad kept the Mazda until its lease was up and then got himself a Lexus, which he still has. My mom replaced her 1998 Camry with a 2005 Camry, which my dad sold earlier this year in exchange for the Toyota Sienna wheelchair van they have now. My mom has a fondness for Toyotas, can you tell? :)
4. And now the 2007 Mazda3, which I really did love and will miss and crap, there was a ton of stuff in that car I'm going to have to figure out how to get home somehow. I definitely want another Mazda3--the 6 is too big, I prefer smaller cars, but I want the hatchback. I wanted the hatchback when I bought the 07, but I couldn't afford it. I don't know what I can afford now, which is aggravating, so we'll see what happens.
The anxiety is still problematic, and I called my doctor's office this morning to say "Hey, the clonidine kind of sucks, what else can I do?" because I didn't want to go through the whole weekend feeling this anxious. They called me back an hour later and said Dr. L was writing me a scrip for propranolol, which is another blood pressure medication also used to treat migraines and other things. I am...not thrilled about the use of BP medication because my BP is fine (I average about 110/70 or less) but my psychiatrist is out of town until Tuesday and my current meds aren't doing enough to manage the anxiety, so I'll stick with the propranolol for a few days and see how it treats me. I am less anxious right now than I expected to be but I think getting some definitive news about the car helped, even if it wasn't what I wanted to hear. (Or maybe it was; hey, new car is exciting, and mine was six years old. Even though Morgan really should have gotten the next new car in our family, and I still feel guilty about that. Maybe next year he can get a new car.)
So that's life around here. Morgan and I were trying to figure out when we could go to the dealer and talk about cars but realized we have to wait for the check from State Farm before we can do anything, so that makes life a bit easier as I can't really get to the dealer before Thursday unless we go tomorrow morning. Gotta love my work schedule. Sigh. But I'll be glad to get back to work; I essentially lost a week for this accident, and I feel insanely guilty about it.
Thanks for all the hugs and good wishes - I am definitely on the mend and doing better, I promise, and I should be back to full capacity in a few days or less.
This entry was originally posted at http://blueraccoon.dreamwidth.org/1202350.html. Please comment there. |
comments