Worried About Winter

Last night we had the first snow of the season.  Ick.  It should not be snowing before Thanksgiving!

When I took Isaac out to pee before bed, he was surprised to see the snow.  Then he was delighted and excited.  He likes snow.

I do not.

This morning I had an appointment about an hour away at 8:00 am.  So at 6:45 am, I headed out to clean the ice and snow off my car.  It was hard to even get to my car.  My parking lot was a sheet of ice.  It was like an ice skating rink.  Halfway across the parking lot, I almost turned around and went back inside.  I was terrified of falling.

I got to my car, but then I had to scrape ice off all the windows.  I was trying to hold on to the car with one hand and scrape the ice off the windows with the other hand.  I am so scared of falling. 

I remember being worried about falling last winter but I don't think I was as terrified as I was this morning.  It was awful.

My back hurts so much all the time, I can't imagine how much it would hurt to fall on the ice.  Well, I can imagine, and I hate what I imagine, and that's what terrifies me.   But that's not all that frightens me. 

If I fell in the middle of my parking lot, I don't know if I'd be able to get up.  If I fell next to my car, I could probably hold on to the car and get back onto my feet.  But in the middle of the lot?  With nothing to hold onto?  I don't know if I could get up.  Maybe I could crawl over to a car or something to hold onto.  But what if I fall and can't get up?  How long would I be lying on the ground before someone came along that could help me? 

And what if I hurt myself?  I can't be injured.  I mean, I live alone and there is really no one to help me with stuff.  If I fall and hurt myself and am unable to, say, lift a basket of laundry, there is no one that I can ask to do a load of laundry for me.  I just would not be able to wash clothes for however long it took for me to recover.  If I could not take Isaac out to pee, there is no one I can ask to walk him for me (other than the dog walker, and I can't afford to pay him to come more than three times a week, even if he was available more often).  He would have to pee in the house.  If I ran out of dog food and couldn't drive to the store to buy  more, there is not one person I could ask to go to the store for me.  I would have to feed Isaac something else.  Maybe I would feed him cat food or hot dogs or something else I had on hand.  There is no one to do any of these things for me.  I have to be able to do them for myself.  So the idea of falling on the ice and hurting myself terrifies me.

I'm going to try to go out as little as possible when it's icy out.  I will try to shop when the weather is good and stock up on things.  But sometimes I will have to go places, even if it is icy.  I hadn't worried about it at all until this morning, but now I am really scared.