I was in a serious car accident a few nights ago. One that I am not proud of, one that I am also not ashamed of. It was a series of choices and consequences that led me to being thrown into the dashboard of a Honda Accord speeding down the 10 freeway at 3 am on a Wednesday night. Those choices involved massive consumption of tequila.
Disclaimer: I still plan on consuming tequila. Maybe not on a regular basis, and probably not so much all at once. It wasn't the alcohol that did this...well it wasn't entirely the alcohol. It was the people, drinking the alcohol, and choosing to get into cars.
We were out, celebrating. Celebrating my birthday actually, a few weeks early, but it was the only day everyone seemed able to come out. The party was a blast, good music, good people, dancing, festivities. All things that I like. We were close to my home, in the same town...no need to get on the freeway. So why did we get on the freeway? That is a question that will likely never be answered. I left the celebration with a male friend (who really is a whole other story...or a non story anymore). *Confession: Maybe not exactly at the moment, but in the very recent past I had been aware that this friend drinks and drives.* I was not paying any attention what so ever to how much alcohol he was consuming at the party. In all seriousness, I figure that he had a little to drink, or maybe even more than a little, but I felt sure that we were going to get home safely. Or did I? Did I even think about getting home safely? Here is where my level of alcohol consumption comes into play. I was so drunk that I didn't make a conscious decision to figure out if the person who would be transporting my life from point A to point B was sober enough to do so safely. Instead, I got in the car and passed the fuck out. Out of habit, thankfully, I buckled my safety belt before slipping away into unconsciousness (slipping away? more like I was already there).
The story picks back up for me when I wake up, startled, confused, shocked, scared as I look to my left and see the driver of the vehicle against an inflated air bag. At that moment it registered that something happened and I looked in front of me to see my airbag and myself covered in glass. I don't know how long I sat like that before the police arrived, but when they did, they helped me out of the car and checked me out. I didn't seem to have any broken bones (xrays confirmed this later) or huge gashes, just scrapes and bruises. They asked me lots of questions. I felt like a baby bird that had fallen from it's nest, stunned and shaking. I was still not sober, and really confused. Meanwhile, the driver of the car was getting arrested for Driving Under the Influence and shuttled off to jail. "What happened?" they kept asking..."good question" was all I could reply. Did I need the paramedics or to go to the hospital? Maybe...but I declined. I wanted to go home, and so they took me.
I woke up the next morning with glass in my shorts, and a bad hangover. Or was it a concussion? Either way I alternated between puking and sleeping all day, barely coming to terms with what had happened little than 6 hours before. What happened...?
That night, the male-friend driver came over. He had spent the last 24 hours in jail wondering what the hell happened and if I was OK. He could hardly look me in the eyes. "What happened?" I asked. "I don't know," was his answer. I don't know what we hit. He doesn't know what we hit. The police don't know what we hit. A guard rail? Another car? A deer? God??? No answers. No one knows. The police think, according to the angle of our car and the damage, that we were hit. That another car, perhaps a drunk driver as well hit us, and never stopped.
The next morning I woke up like a zombie. I cried off and on all day. I went to Urgent Care to make sure I was fully intact and as far as they could tell I was. The effect of the trauma however was truly expressing itself through my depression. I stayed in that state most of the day, which was yesterday. I forced myself to hang out with some friends in the evening, and that really did lift my spirits and help me laugh. It also brought about discussion of "what next" and how what had happened was the most text book cliche of a life changing experience.
That brings me to today. 3 days after a serious accident i've heard that your injuries should feel worse. Mine feel better. I also feel clear that my life is very very valuable to me. I thought that I valued my life, in the way that anyone who hasn't come close to loosing it has valued their life maybe. I feel clear that there is a tremendous amount of momentum behind me propelling me into forward motion. I feel clear that now is the time to ride that momentum and change and shift into where and what I am on the verge of becoming...which is me...the same me that has always been...but more me than has ever been. It is time to have value in my work life and I feel that a shift is happening there. But it isn't that I am giving all of my power to this event and to this force. I am feeling my own power. My power to take responsibility and make this life what I want. It feels as though I have no other choice at this point, like there is no going back to wherever back was. I cannot shrink into the same stifling habits any longer. It's time to put in work and really show up. I'm not getting run over this time, or anytime. I'm here. I'm really here.
