That’s Unfortunate

When I was 27 years old I got divorced. I had three kids. My daughter was 2 months old. My sons were 1 and 2 1/2. Yes, I had my hands full. We moved out of our 5 bedroom house into a two bedroom apartment. To make sure the babies slept I decided to sleep on the couch. That was my bedroom. I had been a stay at home mom when I was married and during the divorce I started working a 10 and sometimes 12 hour shift at a daycare and the kids went with me. We were still trying to sell the house we had owned so we were paying for that, the new apartment, lawyer fees, and many other bills. One of those bills I was paying was a very!! expensive car note on a very new suburban. I had to find a car that would fit my three small kids. I searched and I found a gold mini van. Yes, I said Gold. I went in to trade my car in. I was upside down on my suburban. Yes, I made many mistakes when I was young but we can get to that later. I remember the owner of the dealership seriously coming out to shake my hand and to tell me how great this car was. I remember thinking, “Relax dude, you are going to get the brand new fully loaded suburban and I am going to leave with the golden mom mobile, so calm down.” All of the papers were being drawn up and I was texting my sister “oh how the mighty have fallen”. She thought that was hilarious. I had always sworn to never drive a mini van. I look back on how stupid and vain I was and am annoyed with myself now. So, I had my mini van and my apartment and time went on. A year later I went on a date. Not just any date. A date with a guy I had pretty much liked since 6th grade. If you know who it is shut your mouth. haha. So we went and had dinner and then he was pulling up to my apartment to drop me off. He said, “Which car is yours?” I said. “that one.” and pointed to my gold minivan. He said, “what? really? That’s unfortunate.”

Honestly, I don’t remember what I said after that. Not many dates happened after that because we were always meant to be friends. He is a nice guy. But I thought about how he said “That’s unfortunate” over and over. That was his perception. But I had a different one. This post started out with me naming all of these hardships that we had as a family, like moving into an apartment and working 12 hour shifts and trading in my car. But I remember other things. first, I remember how much money I saved by doing those things and I feel good knowing I did what I had to do for my family. I did what was right. I also remember showing the kids the new car and how excited they were because it had a dvd player in it. They loved the new car. They yelled “golden!!” at the top of their lungs when we were looking for it in the parking lot. I came to love that car. That was “our car”. It belonged to me and the kids and it was ours. We lovingly called it golden girl.

I remember that apartment we moved into and smile. We left this big house for this small apartment. But the kids got new rooms and new beds. We put our pictures on the walls. We ate breakfast together early in the mornings before we all headed to the daycare at 6am. They ran around the daycare helping me open. When work was over we headed home together to the apartment. We made dinner together, we listened to the radio together, we danced together. Me and my babies, in OUR apartment. There was no chaos, no fighting, just us.

He saw a gold mini van. The dreaded mom mobile. He thought “That’s unfortunate.” But I think about how fortunate or blessed I was to find that car, to get out of that expensive car payment, to spend all of that time with my kids in a healthy environment, to realize what was REALLY important in my life. When I think back on that time it is fondly and always with a lot of pride.

Golden took a turn for the worse and kept on having problems. So many problems. Oh how lovely it was every time it started to smoke, or when it would lock up on me. I especially liked when everything came on. the blinkers, horn, wipers. I couldn’t get any of them to turn off. The day I sold it to Texas direct the guy at the body shop said, ” you will be lucky if you make it there.” I think that was a perfect ending to our hilarious relationship. Even though Golden caused me so many problems, I really was a little sad to see her go. Now we have Betty White. My fiancé, Duane, doesn’t like that I name all of my cars after old women, apparently that’s weird. ha! so him and the kids call it Marshmallow, but we know the truth. We live in a house now but when we drive by that apartment my kids always say they miss it. So do I sometimes.

We all get the point right? Those things in life that seem unfortunate, are they? Or are they unimportant? Trivial? Or, are they exactly what you need? Thanks for reading.

  CONTINUED:

My brother in law just sent me a sweet text about the new blog. He reminded me about a great memory with golden girl. My brother in law, Cody, and my sister, Tammy, live in a very nice neighborhood. Their neighbor has lion statues in the front yard, just saying. They have a neighborhood Facebook page that basically blasts anyone for doing anything wrong. It’s mostly wealthy retired people there. So one day I decide to go hang out with them. They live about an hour away from me in Kingwood, TX. I am a few miles away from their neighborhood when I start to hear a dragging sound from under my car. SON OF A !!!!! I think. I pull over and a big black plastic thing is hanging down, dragging on the street. I tried for a while to do anything to stop it from falling down but couldn’t. So there I am driving through their neighborhood. I pull up to their house and they are outside. All anyone can hear is chhhhhh. I can’t help but laugh as I pull up. Cody looks at me and just shakes his head in disapproval and Tammy just laughs. Cody zip ties it to my car and all is well. It stayed fixed until I was driving in Fredericksburg, TX one weekend with my mom and kids. It got ripped off and we kept on going. My mom just put her hand over her face in embarrassment. Good times.