The beginning- Getting used to my new Universe

Getting Used to my new Universe-

 The few times I drove up here to visit, I was terrified by the traffic -ruling 95gangs. 295, 495, 9595- such a rude group of ruffian highways that demand drivers to push hard and move fast. ALL THE TIME.  People drive as if they just won the lottery or they lost and are mad about it. 

At home, it was easy to avoid traffic by being the early bird at the grocery or getting gas. Here it is obvious any early bird was bullied right out of town long ago. I learned that going somewhere at 9am is easier than 6am because many people have landed their crafts at work. The next window that works is 1:30 to 3. After 3, forget it. I have managed to find back ways to almost everywhere I need to go, and I find some relief in knowing there ARE back ways.  I'd much rather be found in a ditch than to be discovered after being run over beyond recognition on the highway. It's the little things.

My comfort zone has been about one mile in diameter. I have always been able to walk to work, grocery, church, CharGrill, or Snoopys if I wanted to. I remember feeling that a 30-minute trip required a passport, so I rarely went outside of my zone. Here, 30 minutes is a blink.

I had a huge fear of not doing things right that were really important to do when you move, and the anxiety/paranoia won out over the brain fog. What if I  messed up getting a new driver's license? Sensibility tends to disappear when anxiety rules and my inner voices reminded me I was in or near WASHINGTON, DC-where the FBI lived, and Quantico was just over there so, ugh.  

On top of everything else, I was figuring out Social Security retirement and Medicareless.  What if Social Security decided to drop me. I mean it could do that, right? I only knew Social Security as something that came out of my paycheck but now, It WAS my paycheck.  And the only insurance I had known was the one you paid for through work, and then you went where you needed to go and paid a co-pay. This Medicare- didn't. It didn't Care, and certainly did not/ does not make much of anything easy. How does that make sense? You work all your life and when you finally reach the age of not having to work, you are expected to still have an active mensa brain so you can figure out how to manage these foreign bodies. What I lost in brain speed I picked up in joint pain and  wrinkles. The tradeoff is not really fair.  So, I surrendered. It allowed me to embrace inappropriate humor in non-humorous situations. Thankful. Thankful Thankful.

I eventually was able to get most of the Things-I-don't-want-to-do list done online, so car insurance, bank account, library cards, and other minutia was doable despite my crazy inner voices. Slowly, I felt myself being open to some positives in learning about this new world when I discovered this state did not require annual inspections on cars!  I was foolishly relieved. What that really means is that cars are inspected once, and they follow a very long list that covers things the people who make the cars don't even know. So, when I took my car to get its one-time inspection, I walked out $800 poorer. My little car drove as if it had been violated, and I don't blame it.  It took a few days to find the celebration in that once-in-a-lifetime car inspection. I settled on relief that it was over.

The girls walked me through so many other littlebig things, and that helped. I began to settle, sort of, but not really for a long long while.  At any rate, I was glad to have nonsensical perspective back.