5/23 When my daughter asked how things had been going in my life, what I had been up to lately, I knew nothing to answer. She asked the question in a mocking tone, as she usually does, but I know the genuine interest that lies in it. Everything I have done over the last months crumbled instantly. I tried to synthesize responses, each of them poorer and more ridiculous than the other.

To my greatest embarrassment, I made a scratch in the rental car. Front bumper, driver side. But not only did I make a scratch in the rental car, but also a much bigger one in the car that I scratched, the car standing next to me in the parking lot. As I got out of my car to examine the situation (because I wasn’t really sure if I had actually touched the other car), the other driver came, did not notice anything on his car (even though it was the driver door that I scratched), got in and drove away. As I examined my front bumper, it became clear that I had actually scratched it. I will have to file an insurance claim, which will be alright, but what I have done to the other car, and to the other driver, will keep haunting me. I should have been active, and said something to him even just on the suspicion that something had happened, even if just to prevent a memory of guilt haunting me from now on.