A Hefty "Stupid Tax"

[Edited to add] I wrote the bulk of this yesterday when everything was super raw and wasn't sure if I should publish it, since it's full of melodrama.

Thanks to some amazing people in my life, I have a better perspective on it today. My intense fear of being seen as a failure eclipsed the fact that, holy crap, I survived a serious car crash, walking away from it without a scratch.

I'm leaving the original post up because I'm starting to laugh at how melodramatic I was about something so inconsequential compared to what could have easily happened. It's a little embarrassing though, so read it with a grain of salt.

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***This is about a car accident, so you may not want to read it/look at the picture.***

The heating company came yesterday morning to do a gas check (something they require for new customers), and the technician came later than expected. So I was driving a little faster than prudent under the conditions to get to work when my front right tire caught the edge of a slush/ice puddle, fishtailed violently across the road, hit a snow bank, flipped upside down, and slid into a tree on the driver's side.

Aside from an "Oh shit, well, this is happening," there really wasn't any time to freak out. The worst part was being upside down, trying to get unbuckled and find a way out before the car blew up (which is what my treacherous imagination told me would happen but totally didn't). It probably only took me a minute to unbuckle, roll down the passenger side window, scoot over, and wiggle out, but it felt like a lifetime. By then the driver of the car that had been in front of me had run down the embankment to see if I was okay and had called 911.

I walked away completely unhurt (aside from a headache and some muscle aches).

Once the tow truck had arrived, the sheriff ('s deputy? I don't actually understand the sheriff's department.) drove me into work, where I checked my email and settled in to make a few phone calls.

You'd think a day couldn't get any worse, but hoo boy, it can. I found out that when I had signed up for insurance with Geico two years ago, I had chosen the bare minimum which covered bodily harm and property damage, but not collisions. (The only reason I can think of why I did this was that I was in AmeriCorps at the time and had a very limited monthly budget.)

 I don't think the owner of the tree will be making a claim (the insurance agent asked if that was a possibility), so basically I'm on my own. I am incredibly lucky in that, besides not being hurt at all, nothing was owed on the car, my dad had been planning to pass on his truck to me anyway when he got a new one, and I have enough disposable income to cover towing and other costs.

None of that makes me feel better. Not even the part where I walked away unscathed.

I just keep asking myself how I could be that much of a moron, to not have collision insurance. For such a small action, it had big, huge, expensive consequences.

I think the worst part was the dismay and disappointment in my mom's voice when I told her, and the imagined disappointment and judgement from my dad. I'd let my parents down as well as myself. I just wanted someone to tell me that it was okay, that other people are idiots too, that $6,000+ wasn't that big of a loss...basically I wanted someone to build me a delusional world where I didn't have to feel so bad.

Unfortunately, I have to live in this world, a world in which I almost wish I had been injured because at least that would have been covered. A world in which I made such a colossal mistake.

But it is also a world in which there are bright points as well as dark ones. My friends and coworkers have offered me their cars, their time, their hugs, and their boyfriends' expertise. I also made a work connection with the police officer around my prescription drug abuse education work...networking is key!

My sister texted me that when she had made a costly mistake, our dad had told her to "think of it as a Stupid Tax, write it off, and move on." Despite the fact that I feel like I'm always paying Stupid Taxes (and usually with my parents' money, which makes it soooo much worse), it does help start to put it behind me.

I'm still kicking myself for not having the right insurance, but as our family sayings go, "If it's dead, it's dead." "It is what it is." So my car is dead, that $6,000 is gone, and I can do nothing about it but sign up for better insurance and be thankful that I wasn't hurt.

And I'm flying out tomorrow to Wisconsin to drive the truck back to Maine, so I get an unexpected trip home to see my parents!