April fourth

Tuesday, April 4, 2017 found me in Milwaukee. I had taken a few days off to get out of Door County. Things weren’t going perfectly, but that’s to be expected. I got lost on my way to the art museum from my Airbnb, but I figured it out. I wandered around the museum for a while, and then I walked around a few blocks and had lunch at (the wrong) Collectivo. My next couple stops included American Apparel and Urban Outfitters after ending up in a hospital parking ramp and then refueling Luna. I wanted to go to Trader Joe’s too, but I decided to drop off my purchases at the apartment first.

I was nearly to Trader Joe’s when I noticed something weird was happening. The music stopped playing, my heated seat turned off, and then all of the meters on my dashboard dropped. I found a parking space in the lowest level of the parking garage and called my dad to find out what to do before turning the car off. He told me that my alternator failed and I wouldn’t be able to drive the car home. I found a place to fix it and scheduled an appointment for the morning, and then my car died. I later had to hail an Uber to bring me from Trader Joe’s to my Airbnb, and that’s the most millennial sentence I’ll ever say. Thanks to some misunderstandings on my part, my wonderful parents, and some lovely friends in the Milwaukee area, Luna was running the next evening and I safely returned home.

But the point of that story is that my car died on April fourth, and I am convinced that it’s because I forgot that it was April fourth. It was the seventh anniversary of the scariest night of my life. That’s not my story to tell, so I will leave that part vague.

My parents may not be perfect, but I have yet to meet anyone who is. I can’t say that I’ve always gotten along with them, but they have raised me to be the best that I can be and they have taught me many valuable lessons about life and this crazy world that we live in.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how different my life was a year ago and it’s been bittersweet, but I’m hoping that looking back next year, I will be proud of how far I’ve come in this next year.

Every day is the start of something new.

xoxo.