No Biggie

What a relief! I had to go to traffic court today. In the midst of my flurry of activity during December with all the jobs, experimenting, juggling…riffing, trying to plan a move, low on funds, how am I gonna pay for Christmas, I was a bit anxious, distractible and frazzled.

I was taking a new route to one of my new jobs and was going down a hill when I noticed the car had rapidly accelerated due to the steepness and I put on the brakes a little too late. I saw the flashing lights in my rearview, uh oh, good thing I left for work early!

I pulled over into a parking lot and waited, I took some deep breaths and told myself, it’ll be fine, just center yourself, it’s just a ticket, you’ll live, lol 🙂

The tow haired, clear blue eyed, youthful officer was kindly, “Where were you going in such a hurry? Were you running late?” I replied, “No, the slope of the hill caught me by surprise and I put on my brakes but not soon enough, I’m still not used to driving here being from Louisiana where it’s flat.”

“Do you know the speed limit here?” I didn’t really, but guessed incorrectly.

“How long have you lived here in Colorado?” I answer truthfully.

“Did you know you’re supposed to register your car here within 3 months of being a resident?” I shake my head.

I get a speeding ticket and a new resident failure to register the car summons.

Good thing we moved to a cheaper place! It cost close to $700 to register the car.

As I drove to work I was flustered and was a bit triggered and traumatized. I guess I’m afraid of cops more than I realized. I talked as little as possible during the encounter because I didn’t want to prolong the interaction. My adrenaline was pumping after I arrived at work, my thoughts were racing with justifications and excuses of why I didn’t have the car registered and was speeding. At one point while checking customers out on the register, I began having a visual disturbance where it’s hard to see out of my one good eye, lol, which is the precursor to migraines for me, but I told myself, not today woman, and I ignored it. It went away after a few minutes and I felt triumphant.

I survived.

That was on December 14th. For the next few days thereafter, my mind would revisit the incident and all the justifications and excuses would flood through me anxiously. I’d imagine having to plead my case in court. I was surprised at how it bothered me.

I shut it down though making a pact with myself to not stress about it until the day before court. I did pretty well. When the thoughts came up, I was able to switch them off rapidly, affirming that there’s nothing I could do about it anyhow, so why waste my energy.

Yesterday though, I allowed myself to think about all the stories surrounding why this happened. I blamed being overstressed and being irritated by some pettiness prior to driving that day, plus being anxious about going to a new job. I blamed not registering the car on all of our financial difficulties. It was low priority and fell throught the cracks.

I traced it back to having health issues (MdDS) plus burnout preventing me from working as a nurse, having to declare bankruptcy, not being able to afford healthcare to treat my health problems, not being able to even pay the car note yet since bankruptcy, so how could I afford to pay for car registration. Basically having a woe is me excuse fest, lol.

I laughed at myself and knew I wouldn’t say any of those things at court. I would just say as little as possible again and accept my fate. That felt the most peaceful to me and I felt calm, like it’d be okay, No biggie. Everything would be fine 🙂

And it was! It snowed this week so it was a beautiful white scaped drive with some small flurries. I found a parking space quickly and the courthouse was huge, domed and beautiful with a backdrop of snowy mountains and evergreens.

I proceeded quickly through security, it felt a bit like going through TSA, found my name on an electronic roster board like at the airport and made it early to the small court room.

I checked in with a cheerful clerk, she handed me some papers which had all this scary stuff about if you want legal representation, etc. and listed the possible maximum fines for the infractions. The speeding ticket up to $200 and the no registration $1000. I panicked for a second, but chose to believe that there’s no way it’d be that much!

I waited until a tall blue eyed man in a suit called my name and he took me out to the hallway where he asked if I’d registered the car, he then left, checked the computer to confirm. Upon return he said he was dropping the no registration offense and pleaded down the speeding offense so I only had to pay 135 dollars! Yay! I signed some papers, gave them to the clerk who gave me a bill to give to another clerk down the hall, paid and was home in a jiffy!

It was no biggie after all!

I made it big and scary in my mind and had periods where I felt victimized even though I tried hard not to 🙂 It was uncomfortable, but everything worked out. The lesson…”There are no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind.” ACIM

Now when I notice myself veering in my mind to petty irritations, I stop and remember that I don’t really want this. Peace returns and I smile. Since I got the ticket, I’ve been more mindful of choosing peace. And I’ve been more careful on the hills, lmao! Plus, the money issues, I’m getting practice on trusting that I’ll always have whatever I need, because I have 🙂 We’re doing fine 🙂 ? And I’m more determined than ever to launch The Logical Heart Knows Best as a business and maybe have more financial freedom on my path with a heart 😀