Two years ago we moved out of the city to a very nice suburb. I was never particularly worried about crime in the city and have barely given it a second thought since we moved out. Yesterday that changed.
I walked out of my house yesterday morning carrying my baby in his car seat and holding my toddler's hand ready to take my toddler to school. I turned toward the car and froze in disbelief as I saw shattered glass everywhere. My first thought was that something hit the window. But a second look showed that our GPS was gone and the window had clearly been smashed.
The financials of the situation are stressful and annoying. Almost a thousand dollars to fix the damage the theif did to get to hundred dollar GPS. But far worse is the sense of being violated and even worse my children seeing it. While my children are too young to understand what happened, I neverless still want to protect them, even though I know that is not always possible or even always desirable.
In retrospect, I clearly have been too naive. I put the GPS away when I parked elsewhere, but thought that in my own driveway I did not need to worry. Clearly I was wrong. The most upsetting part is that this was not something someone could see from the street. Clearly someone was proweling the neighborhood late at night, walking down driveways and peering into cars to find things to steal.
My husband works very long hours and I am often home alone in the evenings. Up until now I have rarely felt uncomfortable being alone with my children in my own home. Rationale or not, I fear this has changed.
Rationally I know that this was a minor incident that could happen anywhere to anyone. But my reaction when it happened to me at my home has nothing to with rational.
1 comment:
I am so sorry to hear about this--and you have every reason to feel victimized. You've been violated in a deeply personal way and it will change the way you look at things. It will make you much more aware, for good and for bad.
A number of years ago, during chol hamoed Pesach, I was at a bank in my hometown closing the savings account I had put my bat mitzvah money into. While I was closing the account (and while my mom was in the vault putting things into a safe deposit box), the bank was robbed. I had a gun waved in my face because I was at the desk nearest the door, and spent what seemed like hours huddled under the desk with a bank employee. We held hands. She told me it happened to her 5 times in her career in banking, and that no one ever gets hurt. That was no consolation.
Being there was terrifying and has changed my life in many big and small ways. Not the least of which is that I generally now only do online banking!!
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