Nowhere to run

I shouldn't feel this way

My van died. Not the battery dying and needed a jump start, and "Oh, gee we need a new battery." I mean it's dead. The oil light came on, then it made a grinding sound and a thump. When I tried to restart it, it made a horrible, louder grinding sound and a thump and died again. We were almost home, so we pushed it the rest of the way and went inside. It was night and it was cold. This was the night before the big "Polar Vortex" hit.

I hunkered down and waited, hoping it was just begging for oil, and by some miracle there was an oil leak and if we just put oil in it (ha ha) it would be a happy little van and make it to the shop (even though we have no hope of being able to pay to fix it anyway). But it wasn't that low on oil. My husband poured oil in anyway, and we tried starting it up again, only to hear it complain to me again. With the hood up, we could hear that the thump was coming from the side of the engine.

I texted my daughter, hoping she would come take a look at it for a clue as to what is wrong since she is a whiz with cars and going to school to be a mechanic. No luck. Her truck's power steering went out and she can't turn around out here. She is fixing it tomorrow.

Then it hits me. Tomorrow is my counseling.

I have been logging away things that have been coming up the past two weeks. Saving them for my counseling session. All the little slams. All the minor attacks on my self esteem. All the things that have happened and I didn't know how to react. What to say. What to do.

There will be no help. And all of a sudden I feel trapped. And I feel panic.

And I want to cry.