April 23, 2026

And My Sweet Neighbor Said it Sounded Like a Nightmare Scenario

I sent the following text to my neighbor when life happened and I reacted big. She was wonderful enough to acknowledge that we have all been in THAT state before. Hope you can relate to my humanity here whether you have reached the life level “Sandwiched” yet not.

Here’s the text I felt compelled to send after it all went down and my neighbor’s wonderful employees came to check on me.

Hi- please do not worry about getting back to this with any urgency. I am SUPER embarrassed. It’s a long story but something stressful happened at a time when I am having just a tough week and month in general and I am fine and no one needs to worry about it. I just had this thing happen (explained below) and I overreacted (screaming) and I didn’t realize how loud I was and some ladies (kindly) came over to check on me. I think they may be working at your house. I really apologize for disrupting them. It was just an awful moment and I am fine now and hope we can forget the whole thing. They did at least come close to my house (not a problem) but I was yelling to them that I was fine because I just couldn’t get myself calmed down in the moment and my dog was getting ready to bolt out the door so I just needed them to go away at that moment. Please tell them I appreciate them caring and that everything is fine!! I am calm now so if anyone needs to see me to see that I am ok just let me know.

Ok so this is what happened. I take care of my mom and she has had one knee replaced (mid-May will be the third or fourth post-op visit because she has had a bunch of pain in the knee that was replaced and the incision got infected- pain is improving and infection is fine now). Anyway, she still has bone on bone in the right knee so she cannot get up into SUVs which are what I drove, what (husband) drives, and what my dad drives so we still have this little old Ford focus that we drive mostly just to her appointments (and actually my suburban’s engine was about dead so we sold that last evening so I am driving her little car to work on the 2 days I work and to take her to appts until we buy me another vehicle). Anyway….i got her home from her appointment this morning, I have some stress from trying to balance everything I am responsible for here, and I pulled the little car into the garage and put the key fob into my front pocket of my sweatshirt. I got her a late breakfast and was lifting some boxes and didn’t know that at some point my body pushed the button on the remote start on the car so it was running in the garage for who knows how long and I didn’t know it. I got Mom back to her suite and opened the house/person door to step down into the closed garage to take some items out to recycle and I saw the car running in the closed garage and it was startling but I quickly pressed the buttons and opened both big garage doors because I knew I needed to vent the garage.

I forgot where the key fob was entirely and I am panicking a bit hoping I am not breathing in too much of anything nasty and figuring that it’s fine because I opened the garage doors, but it was kind of the last straw when I went over to the running car and it was locked and I couldn’t find the key fob and I couldn’t remember if I had left the key in the ignition but I really thought I didn’t. And I started screaming for my mom asking her where my dad’s other key was and she didn’t hear me and then I was getting really upset because I couldn’t turn the car off and I was feeling a sense of urgency because I had an important errand I had to do before I had to be back to my computer for an afternoon session and I just got myself really worked up and was yelling something to mom like “oh my god oh my god I can’t get it to shut off call dad and ask him where his key is, oh my god I can’t find the key to get the car open and I can’t shut it off!!). It was louder and more shrill than it should have been and when they approached I had myself half in the middle of rational talk that going to this errand and getting the car shut off is not an emergency but also just angry and worked up that I couldn’t find the key I had and that I couldn’t find my dad’s spare key and was then screaming some more just in anger and frustration and dysregulation and then I realized they were outside and tried to assure them I was ok and was trying to keep the dog from getting out and it was just one of my worst moments

Feel free to share this with them and let them know I found the key fob on my person shortly after they left and then I couldn’t get the button to work because it’s intermittently working because we need to get a new battery and finally it just shut off on its own.

Again i apologize greatly for the disturbance.

The text ended there and my neighbor couldn’t have been kinder. Hope my vulnerable moment helps you feel better through yours!