Check Your Damn Engine

My check engine light peacefully illuminates my dash with regularity, kindly suggesting I might want to perform a little maintenance. It freaks me out every single time it comes on - and yet -  I've gotten good at ignoring it. (Deliberate hand placement on the wheel blocks the light.) I do that for a while until, eventually, a rude CHECK YOUR DAMN ENGINE alarm blaresAnd I die ten thousand deaths.

(It just occurred to me this probably doesn't happen to anyone else. Other people don't drive beaters by choice.) That being said, it is my form of own self inflicted anxiety. A penance, I suppose, for driving new trucks we couldn't afford all those years.

Once my heart resumes beating, a panicked internal dialogue begins: Do I keep driving? Do I pull over now? Do I stop at the next service station and google mechanics? Is this a deal breaker? Am I going to have to buy a new car?

A year ago, if I had the windshield wipers and headlights on at the same time and used my blinker, the light would pop on, followed about two minutes later by the alarm and then my blinkers would start flickering rapidly and the fuse would blow. Like clockwork.

In relationships, triggers follow a similar pattern. First the warning lights. Then the alarm. If it happens once, it's not a thing. If it happens every time it rains and you turn on your headlights, it's definitely a thing. And since I drive the old Jeep, it's my thing. I own it.

After about six months I took the Jeep to the mechanic and got it fixed.

All that to say, I need to own my own problems. It doesn't matter whether the relationship is parent/child, sibling, spousal, or work related, if one person tells you that you're difficult to love, or hard headed it might be that they are full of shit. Maybe they are the one with the faulty blinker.

but if it happens more than once, it's probably not a bad idea to check under the hood. That's not to say the other person isn't still full of shit or that they don't need to check their own damn engine - just sayin. I still need to own my part of the equation.

And apparently, I have a problem requesting and/or accepting help.