{If you haven’t read about my cursed car, allow me to recap the latest and greatest: what started as a tiny chip in my windshield has now grown into a two feet crack, and is stretching rapidly as we speak.}

A teeny tiny barely noticeable chip has become the bane of my car’s existence. And it happened in an instant. I officially have a cracked windshield, broken beyond belief.

It reminds me of broken relationships. You know….the ones that start with a chip, something small and not really worth mentioning. A comment made out of jealousy. A moment of absence in a time of need. A small white lie perhaps.

Nothing major, or worth making a fuss about. It’s just a chip. No big deal. You can hardly even see it. You could probably have the chip patched, but what is that really going to do? It will still be there. Insincere apology or not, patch or no patch, it’s still there. Why fight for an unsatisfactory solution? Tiny and unnoticed, it’s so easy to ignore.

Over time, the sun and wind beat down on the windshield, day after day. One afternoon the chip suddenly splits into a crack, out of nowhere with no warning. You can’t avoid the damage anymore—it’s there, in plain sight. What do you do? Should you confront it? Ignore it? Replace it? Scream?

All of the above?

There’s no perfect solution I suppose. Confronting and screaming always feels good, although that typically doesn’t solve anything. You could ignore the damage, while watching it grow worse and worse with each passing day. Replacing it sounds like the best solution, as difficult as that might be. After all, replacements are often expensive and time consuming, and sometimes they’re not even worth the investment. Who’s to say a chip won’t appear on the new windshield tomorrow? This world is full of rocks and selfish people.

You can’t protect the windshield, just like you can’t protect your heart.

You can try to dodge the flying rocks, but they’ll get you eventually. They’ll strike you so fast, you won’t even know you’ve been hit. Until you notice the chip.

It all starts with a chip….

Tags: broken relationships, broken windshields

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 1:06 pm and is filed under be. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.