After explaining it to both my parents, my insurer, a cop, and all my friends, I don't want to talk about how it happened.
Its just one of those freak accidents. And yet I still feel horrible. I wasn't being reckless but I keep thinking how it would have been different if I'd taken an easier route or paused just for a second.
All I remember is the shock like a sonic blast, my car bouncing, and the sound of cracking plastic. I didn't even realize what had happened until I pulled into a driveway and got out of my car. The front right of my car is unrecognizable, the paint is everywhere and I keep thinking that my wheel looks naked until it dawns on me twenty minutes later that I don't know where my hubcap is.
And I'm sitting in this guy's yard staring at my car and staring at the other person's car. I walk over to check on them and they're holding a phone to their ear and won't talk me. I keep thinking I should call an ambulance or the police but I'm so much in shock that I can't remember how to operate my phone. The next thing I know though I'm crying to my mom and apologizing for wrecking the car. The car that I love, the car with great mileage that has taken me back and forth across the state and once into Texas, the car they bought me for making good grades my freshman year of college.
And I was just sitting there crying while the EMTs take the other driver away in an ambulance. They keep asking if I need to go too but I turned them down. I must have told five different people I was okay. Sometimes I hate my ability to construct long and grammatically proper sentences while drunk or in times of crisis. I was sobbing and shaking like a leaf and in serious shock and then I just told them I was fine, signed a waiver, and sent them on their way.
Course, just an hour later my mom was recounting her own accident stories from her teen years. She was fine too until hours later when she was home and kept falling asleep and being very difficult to wake up. Logic follows that now I'm terrified to even close my eyes. I have a headache and I feel terrible but I know its because of the adrenaline rush. I mean, my airbag didn't even deploy.
It doesn't help that three weeks ago, a friend from high school was killed in a car crash. My ex and I have a rule that we're each supposed to call the other when bad things happen. He let me know when his brother was hospitalized a few days ago for an accident on his bicycle. He lost his sense of smell and they had to drain fluid off his brain. I called my ex like I was supposed to and he called me back after visiting with his brother. He was so worried and kept insisting I'd get a ride to the hospital. I feel so bad cause he already has enough to worry about. My crash is minor and I can't stop thinking about how I should feel grateful that I'm okay. I keep thinking about the other driver and how they're doing.
When I was getting back in my car to limp it home, just being near the road terrified me. It took me forever to turn the ignition. Just last month, my ex and I were almost pushed off the Causeway bridge by a drunk driver. Two weeks ago, a black truck almost hit my roommate and I. If there hadn't been a turn lane for me to swerve into, we would have been flipped in a ditch.
Thinking about all the close calls and now this incident where there was a collision, I don't want to drive again. I don't even really want to be in a car (though I will have to be getting rides to school for the rest of the week.)
Thinking about my friend and my Ex's brother just makes me realize how dangerous the world is. And to be honest, it makes me never want to leave my house again. Course, after last year's gas leak, I thinking nowhere is safe.
I can't stop crying and shaking and I was like this before the crash, with handling school and a break-up and a thesis that I'm sure I can't finish in time for graduation. I remember sitting on that guy's lawn wondering if I was finally going to have that heart-attack because a 900lb man has been sitting on a bed of nails pressed into my chest for the last month. I mean, if there was ever a moment when that valve in my heart was going to act up...it should have been today.
*sigh* Thanks for listening to that long rambling mess. Obviously I'm still in shock.
posted
Take it from someone who has a dozen conversations a day about car accidents. You WILL be ok. You will be able to drive again.
Also, please go see a doctor. I don't want to scare you, but just because you feel ok now, doesn't mean soreness won't creep up later.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Ah! Makes sense. I wondered if there was something tomato-specific that was meant to reduce bruising or somesuch.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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