"I Swear, This is the Worst Outfit to Get Into a Car Accident In."

There are certain events that come into our lives, like blips on the radar that stand out from the rest.

Happy ones - birthdays, graduating, falling in love.

And tragic ones. Sad ones. Scary ones. December 8th falls into the latter category.

I've thought heavily about writing about this, because for me it's so soon. It's hard. It puts a pit in my heart. Being in a car accident wasn't the worst thing that could happen to me, but it was one of the worst things that has ever happened to me in my life. As hard as writing about it will be, I will, because I've always tried my best to write it all down on my blog - that way I get it all out, that way it's therapeutic like it's supposed to be. 

My day on December 8th, 2013:  

Dressed and ready for work, I got in my truck and started the 90 minute sojourn to Columbus. It was an overcast day; drizzling a little, and cold. I was in my long blue princess gown. One of my friends texted me to wish me a safe drive before I'd left. I thought that was funny - I made the drive weekly for a Tuesday gig, and had done it countless times. 

As I drove down Highway 96 just out of Reynolds, I let my mind daydream as it always does. The roads were largely empty, as backroads here often are. My truck hit the grass on the median on my left side a little. Suddenly, what was intended to be a simple matter of straightening out went terribly, terribly wrong. My adjustment to the right turned into a swerve, and another, and another.I was swerving all over the road, and I'd never had a defensive driving class, I didn't know what to do. This isn't too out of control. I can still straighten this out. Just give me a sec... 

I couldn't do it. My car was out of control, and it all happened so fast, it took a big swerve to the left, over the median, and flipped. If you want the precise logistics of what happened, I can say this: I can't tell you. It was all glass and noise to me as I watched helplessly.
From there on, it was a deafening melange of tumbling, rolling, screeching, shattering, shuddering, and fear.
In my mind's eye, the moment that stands out most is the moment where I see myself hurdling towards the guard rail on the opposite side of the road, the incoming traffic side. It is happening so fast that all I have time to do is watch in horror. I am a puppet, a doll, merely a side effect of the terrible accident happening around me. I had no control. The guard rail separated the road from a large drop off. I thought I might go over. I saw a huge concrete pole looming above me. Would I hit it?

I thought all of this in a split second, and I thought I was going to die. They say you have flashbacks of your life. (Who says that? The dead?) I didn't have flashbacks, but it was a moment that I'll remember for the rest of my life. The feelings and scars might heal in time, but I'll always remember the feeling of truly believing that I am going to die. What I felt was... acceptance.I was terrified, but in the moment, I felt acceptance of what was happening, I felt that I was going to be okay, whether I died or lived. I felt surprisingly little fear just then. I could have screamed, I could have said a million things, but I only said one thing, and that was
"Help, God." And I left it in his hands.

Then the moment speeds up, and the car is still rolling but I'm not moving, there is something all around me holding me still. I guess the airbags have come out, because something big and white surrounds me, but I'm so shocked that I can't even remember them coming out. Glass is shattering around me and I see my car tumbling back onto the wrong side of the road again. I've ping ponged, and then I hear screeching, and I'm rolling around and around and around, and then suddenly eerie silence. I feel as though I've been swinging on a swing set and suddenly I fall off on the midswing upwards: I have no bearings and I've tumbled down and the ground suddenly comes out of nowhere. The road appears in my vision out of nowhere as the car has stilled. I'm sideways. Everything has stopped. My car has stopped. That is when the fear truly began.

The smell was sickening, like burned rubber and exhaust and gasoline. I knew I was in shock. I could feel it, and I was aware of it, but I couldn't stop myself from feeling that way and couldn't stop the way I acted during the shocked stage. Even now recalling these memories makes me sad, bring emotions pouring through me.

"Shit, shit, shit, Oh God, how did this just happen, why, why? God, help, God, why, please, please, no, no, this can't have happened, no..." 
My face paint brushes were strewn across the asphalt, my balloons everywhere, all I could think of was that I wasn't going to make it to my party, and Oh God, my car is totalled, how am I going to drive, how am I going to drive to school, to work, how did I fuck up so bad? 
I was dry sobbing as I got my bearings and tried to get up. My car was laying sideways and kind of face down, at an odd angle that it wasn't supposed to be in, and what was once my driver side window was laying above me, and my windshield lay shattered and on the ground. I try to get up, but my long dress is stuck, and I can't get free. I am trapped. Humorous in hindsight, not so much at that moment, I think: Shit, am I going to have to crawl out of the car into the road in my underwear?
I manage to yank my dress free, and I pull myself up to the window.
A woman comes running up to me. Oh my God, are you ok, are you ok? Are you the only one in there? Is there anyone else? 
I cry back that I'm the only one, I'm ok and I'm alone. I crawl out. I am sobbing now, and suddenly a crowd of people surround me, and I sob harder. "I DON'T UNDERSTAND!" I yell, angry at the world. "How did this happen? Why God, why did this happen to me? How does that just HAPPEN? I DON'T UNDERSTAND."
"I was just... driving... and then  was swerving, and then this happened, and Oh God, this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me in my life, God, God," I sob, into the arms of a complete stranger. And then the shock sets in more. "Sweetie, sweetie, hush, shh, it's ok. You're alive." the woman whose arms I'm in says to me. "It's a miracle. You're alive."
I couldn't hush. I started to panick. I was in such a state of shock that I didn't realize I'd lost my shoes in the accident. My crown was askew. Mascara ran down my face. I was running on glass, on the shattered remains of my windows, while the remains of my truck and the scattered contents of what were in it lie hodgepodge across the road. It felt post apocalyptic. Glass dug into my feet as I ran to the remnants, panicky, searching for my phone. I peered inside the cab, but I only saw my phone case on the ground, and no phone attached to the charger... my phone was missing, my shoes were missing, my jacket was missing, but I saw my glucometer lying on the ground, and frantically picked that up, knowing I'd need it later but not finding much comfort at all from having it. "Honey, you need to sit down. You're in shock. You need to stop running around." Someone said. "I can't!", I cried back. "I CAN'T. I can't. I have to DO something. There's so much to do... so much to do...I can't find my phone and I HAVE to let my boyfriend know. He'll be so worried. I just need to find it... I need to... I have to tell him..."
In my shock-worn mind, all I could think of in that moment was the unrivaled NEED to find my phone and call Joshua. I didn't want to talk to anyone else, he could help and he'd know what to do and he'd take care of everything. The problem was... the only phone number I knew by heart at the time was my mom's. I tried calling my mom on someone's phone that they had lent me several times, but no answer. If I couldn't find my phone, I was stranded out here, and didn't know who else I could call for help.
An ambulance arrived, but I was still running around, crying, screaming that I had to talk to Joshua, I just had to talk to him. Someone escorted me to the ambulance. "You HAVE to at least let them check you out," a woman said. Even in my shocked mind, I avoided medical bills like the plague. (I am a well seasoned Diabetic at this point and familiar with medical costs). I know that sounds stupid, but I started yelling "Am I going to get CHARGED if I let them check me out? You are NOT taking me to the hospital! I'm FINE! I don't have insurance..." I was assured I would not be charged, so I let someone help me up. I was still freaking out. "Please," I told one of the women. "Please, someone try and find my phone. I just want to let my boyfriend know what's going on. He'll be so worried."
I was next to inconsolable, but I allowed the ambulance man to check my blood pressure (it was ok), and use a stethoscope on me. "I'm Diabetic," I told him. He took out a meter. "I'm sure it's fine, though. I just checked it before I left for work." "Type 1 or Type 2?" He asked. "Type 1," I said. He replies with a "Yeah, that makes sense. Type 1's always know what their blood sugar is. Type 2's never do."
That got a laugh out of me.

He approached me with a lancet; "I'm using my own," I said, "I don't like other people lancet-ing me!" And he laughed. My sugar was sitting pretty at 100, as I'd predicted. "That's one good thing I guess," I said. He sat down next to me. "Well, if it's any consolation, you look mighty pretty," and he winked. "I did," I corrected him, wiping away a tear. "I was going to be a princess at a little girl's party." Someone approached the ambulance. "Sweetie, this reverend here would like to pray with you." She said. I was still distraught, and my heart pitter pattered in my ribs, but I acquiesced. Someone put their coat over me and told me to keep it.
The three of us: a reverend, an off duty cop, and a disheveled princess, made a ragtag group. We prayed. The reverend thanked God that I had made it through safely. "Don't worry about material things," he said, when we were done. "They are replaceable. You are not."
He was right. I had made it safely through the accident. It's just... now I had to deal with the consequences left here in the land of the living.

Someone found my phone, amazingly enough, and it was working. I'd cracked my phone from dropping it a year ago on the ground; yet it had made it through a car wreck with not a scratch. (WTF?)
I called Joshua right away. I told him what had happened, and him and Travis were on the way to come get me. I called my client and told her what had happened. I felt so bad.
After deeming that I was OK, I declared that I was getting out and climbed out of the ambulance, still running around in shock, but the buzz was wearing off. My dress dragged through the mud and glass. I didn't care. Someone had found my shoes and handed them to me. "I swear," I told them, trying to have a sense of humor.

"This is the worst outfit to get into a car accident in."

I brushed off the glass best I could and put my feet, scratched and bloody, into them. I guess it was ironic, for little Cinderella had lost her shoes, and stepped on glass.

The shock was starting to wear off but was replaced by still inconsolable heartache. And I could feel pain. My feet now hurt, but the rest of me miraculously felt ok. Tears still fell down my face, but I did my best to gather what I could of my belongings. Paintbrushes, balloons, dresses, car parts, the contents of my purse - I found my jacket, lodged underneath the hood, dug into the mud. I couldn't pull it out under the weight, so I was glad for the jacket that had been given to me. I hugged it for warmth. The cops showed up. I tried to hug one of them, in distress and not thinking. "What are you doing?" He said, pushing me away. I stumbled back, sobbing again.
Joshua and Travis finally arrived in Travis's big red truck. I had never been happier to see anyone. I thought Joshua might be upset, I thought everyone would be upset, but he merely hugged me and rubbed my hair comfortingly, doing his best to make me feel better. I collapsed in his and Travis's arms and sobbed uncontrollably, hiccuping and blubbering as they carried me to the back seat and finished grabbing what they could of my belongings. A tow truck came and took my truck away. The policeman I had tried to hug gave me a ticket. I guess he didn't like hugs. As we drove home, Joshua held me in the backseat until I had sobbed literally every tear that was physically possible. I mumbled random phrases. My head felt like it was in a fuzz. Despite my bitching about no insurance, the boys took me to the hospital to have me checked out, where I got ahold of my mom. They ran X-Rays on me and I was, miraculously, cleared for anything wrong with me.

The only thing I had on my arm was a red scratch from the airbag, and a deep slice on my index finger, which is still healing and bright red, but healing nicely nonetheless.
Miraculously, I had survived the second near-death experience I'd ever had (the first being my Diagnosis). I guess maybe God wants me around. The boys took me home and I was ordered into the shower, and banned from sorting through my stuff, which had been jammed into boxes, bins and bags everywhere. Thick shards of blue tinted glass fell out of nearly everything I picked up. Closing my eyes as I washed my hair, the images came into my head again... the guard rail... tumbling around... I snapped them open.

Go away, I whispered. "Go away".

They won't go away. Not for a long time. But as a friend told me, the emotions and memories will ease in time, eventually.  I hope so. I really hope so, because sometimes I drive my car now and I'll hit a pothole and get startled, or someone will be driving and hit a curb and I'll get shooken up. Sometimes I'll dream of it. Sometimes I'll close my eyes and see tumbling and hear glass again. I'll be cooking and imagine the awful wrecked car smell again. I'll see a rainy day and think of December the 8th. I'll close my eyes, and the familiar guardrail looms. Driving down 96, I always see the dent in it now. The masochistic part of me looks for it every time. I've gotten a lot of scars, and most of them weren't physical. But what can I do but move on and try to forget? It is, as one of my favorite quotes in the Great Gatsby, like this:

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”