A Good Day

 

Here are ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos taken by a nearby islander. They show the damage from the ‘bomb cyclone’ that hit is last Tuesday.

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Monday yielded a miraculous morning, a morning that improved my mental health which has worsened due to two things: my breathing/energy and the storm.

I got up early and got ready to go to Nanaimo. I’ve needed to go to the motor vehicle offices to renew my driver’s license for quite a while, but for me, going to Nanaimo is akin to you, with good mental health, going to Timbuktu—on foot. I know that I can do it, and I go, but my body was vibrating with anxiety the whole time. But miracles happened.

I got to the Services BC office building 15 minutes early. No one was there and I’d been expecting a long line up as always was the case in Vancouver. I was first in line, and when they opened at 9:00 I was first served, and everything went very smoothly. I had all my forms and cards at the ready, and I’d prepared a note about being mute and why I was there.

Once that was done, I took Her Highness for a walk in Bowen Park where we always like to go. And then we went to Home Depot where I had seen a potential new generator online for sale at around five hundred bucks, but all they had in stock were very expensive machines that produced way, way more power than I need. 

Dejected, I headed to the exit, and once outside, I noticed that there was a huge Rona store right next door, so I went there to see what they had. As soon as I entered the sliding glass doors, a lovely woman who smelled like every beautiful flower in the world, asked me how she could help me. I wrote, “generators?” on my boogie board, and she told me how delighted she was to be able to tell show me a domestic model that was on sale!

She pointed out a gentleman who would help me, and she walkie-talkied him telling him to show me the generators on sale. He was as lovely as she had been because he had bought the same generator mere days before the storm hit and he used it for the same purposes I need mine. It was on sale for $399.00. Every generator in Home Depot was over $1,000. So, I bought it.

When I got in the car to drive it over to the loading dock, I just sat there and cried. I was so relieved to have made a difficult decision and solved my dilemma with an affordable solution. Things have been rough; my relief was overwhelming. A fellow helped me load the generator into the car, and then we headed to Walmart for pet supplies. I got everything I needed quickly, and then Sheba and I were on our way to A&W. I celebrated my good fortune with a Teen Burger. Yum and joy! Then we headed to the ferry, and it had just finished unloading as I arrived, so we were on it in minutes, and home shortly thereafter. 

I expect the worst. That’s an aspect of my problem, so all the good fortune of the day, including a free shopping cart, it all felt like a sign that the world is not as cold and nasty as I expect. I came home feeling blessed, and my need to move feels less urgent.

At 2:00, Pete came by. He is coming over this afternoon to help me get the new generator out of my car and set up. I’m going to try to sell the old one (very cheap) to someone with mechanic skills. Our evening was as usual.