good memories and a cautionary tale of Arkansas
This morning, I thought about Arkansas and the crash that so dominates my memories of that trip. And then, I turned my thoughts to the good memories of my 2 weeks there. Flying in to Little Rock to see my (then) best friend, stopping at a go-kart place along the 3-hour drive to Hardy because I said I liked go-karting, the welcome I got from both of her parents when I met each of them in turn (they were divorced and lived quite a ways apart) and from her fiance's mother, Shanda's many-cheese lasagna, swimming in the various lakes and pools and a river in the area of Hardy and Cherokee Village, her and Jason (her fiance) taking me on a road trip to Memphis because I'd never seen the Mississippi River or a bayou (the latter of which was on the way we took back, I think), going with Shanda to where she babysat a couple of kids for this family during the weekdays and me chasing down any bees in the house because she was very allergic, the easy comraderie and bond we shared....These are the important memories....memories I let the crash eclipse for so many years.
The cautionary tale is this....after the accident, though she never showed as much and assured me of the contrary, I became so sure that Shanda was mad at me for it and held it against me, that that became my reality. There were long times when I didn't hear from her after I got back to Washington. So my mind filled in the silence with the wrong things. I kind of went a little off the deep end, so sure was I that she blamed me and was angry with me for wrecking her car and taking away her freedom. In the end, in my dillusions, I wrote the letter that burnt that bridge. Now, I wish I could go back and rebuild it....heal that which was damaged....heal that which I damaged....not through the accident, but through the perceptions I held after it. I may never get that chance. The only thing I can really do is learn from it.
The cautionary tale is this....after the accident, though she never showed as much and assured me of the contrary, I became so sure that Shanda was mad at me for it and held it against me, that that became my reality. There were long times when I didn't hear from her after I got back to Washington. So my mind filled in the silence with the wrong things. I kind of went a little off the deep end, so sure was I that she blamed me and was angry with me for wrecking her car and taking away her freedom. In the end, in my dillusions, I wrote the letter that burnt that bridge. Now, I wish I could go back and rebuild it....heal that which was damaged....heal that which I damaged....not through the accident, but through the perceptions I held after it. I may never get that chance. The only thing I can really do is learn from it.