Sabbatical in Retrospect

So... I had really planned on my first big post upon having an internet connection again being about all the GOOD stuff of being away: how refreshed I feel, how great it is not to be addicted to the computer, how my leg is better, how much writing I did, how my vocation is definitely back, and a number of other things...

Instead, I am writing about the bad stuff that happened about three hours before I got home.

Those of you who were reading any of this last year will remember that I wrote about a game called Bunnock, and that my family goes every year, on the first weekend of August, to the town of Macklin, Saskatchewan, to compete in a huge tournament of the same. For the fifteenth consecutive year, we did so, and my last day of work at the Archives was timed so that I would arrive there Thursday night, my family having already shown up.

Well, it was a great weekend, all told. It was probably my poorest year ever, in terms of wins/losses, but my level of play was about the same as last year, which isn't bad given that I played only two games this summer, and those on crutches. For the first time, all of my siblings were playing on one team or another, and I was impressed at how well they were playing--though it seemed that we were all about the same for lack of luck in winning games.

Anyway, we had a great weekend, and yesterday we all headed back to Olds. Well, that's about a 4.5 to 5 hour drive, depending, and we were on the second leg of the trip, and I was ahead of the others on Highway 21, just south of Delburne. At one of the intersections crossing the highway, as I was coming near, some brainless front-end-loader tractor driver with a bucket full of boulders decided to cross, forcing me to slow down unexpectedly. Now, this in itself would have been only a minor irritation, had not one of his boulders bounced out and landed right in my path. I suppose, in hindsight, if I had been thinking and knowing what it was, I would have swerved immediately, but for all the multiple reasons that were on my mind at the time, such as irritation at the tractor, concern for the vehicle behind me, and thinking it was just a garbage bag or something... well, I cruised right over it and blew my transmission.

This effectively ruined my day.

I coasted to the side of the road, and waited fifteen minutes for my parents, who were behind me and had stopped for gas, to catch up, and then proceeded to drag out the remaining hour and a half of the trip home into about three hours, while we found a towtruck (not easy on a holiday Monday) to pull my poor abused car home.

If I was not in a mood to do more than passively check the news online yesterday, I think depression can be considered a contributing factor.

Mind you, I should be depressed today, but I had a very long sleep, and I'm not on the road in the blistering August sun trying to get home after an exhausting weekend. Besides... there's pretty much nothing that can happen now to make things worse. Dad phoned this morning with the news that I'm looking at around $2500.00 to replace the transmission. This is very nearly what I have in my bank account right now, and even if I had the leg or the energy to work until it's time to go back to seminary, that's only about two and a half weeks of work...

So I'm very, very depressed at the moment, in terms of money, but I'm also kind of just at the point where I don't care anymore. I haven't got the faintest clue how I'm going to pay for anything, starting about right now... but I'm a little bit beyond caring. It's so much easier to worry when you have $2500.00 with which to pay $6000.00 of expenses than when you have $0.00 and the same expenses.

Mom wants me to work, I think, and Dad is probably thinking about the money too... but I need a break. I went straight from school into breaking my leg into work this summer. I haven't had a rest since Christmas (Reading Break so does not count...). I need my two and a half weeks of doing nothing.

Meanwhile, I am so broke....

Alms, anyone?