Life Is A Highway...

Have you ever those thoughts of what you would do in the event that a catastrophic event ever came to you? What do you do when you come within millimeters of living out that thougt?

It would be frightfull enough to encounter a Freightliner tractor-trailor in broad daylight when you are trying to regain control of a 5 passenger, four-door, Saturn SL1 after it had started fish-tailing on a flash-frozen bridge on a curve. Try doing this in the darkness of 5:00am. Watching as the beam of your headlights sweep across two lanes of a 4-lane interstate highway from one guard-rail to another.

You watch as the light illuminates the light shines as you go careening toward one of the guard-rails where you hear the slam of the vehicle against the rail, feel the force of the impact, and watch the fender on the outside of the car buckle outside your windshield. And then you watch it happen again. And this happens as your car is being ping-ponged with the Freightliner. Then, it is flung to the right berm against another guard-rail while a tractor-trailer rubs against your driver's door vibrating your entire seat.

Then the lights go out & you realize you are sitting in a haze of what you think is smoke...fearing the car will explode at any moment...only to realize it is the powder of the two airbags that exploded, saving you from who knows what. You try to get out of your seat belt and realize you can't open your door, so you begin trying to find an escape route from what you fear could be your tomb. Once outside, you try to scramble for the cell phone that you had on your waist before the crash, but you can't find a thing in the pitch darkness. Not even your flashlight.

That was pretty much what happened on Monday morning, Feb. 21 as I went to work. The car was totalled.

I could really go on a rampage, describing how I needed this like I did a hole in my head. I could rail about the fact that just when I thought that things were starting to upswing, the bottom fell out. I could cry and moan about how unfair this whole thing is. That nothing is going my way.

But why?

None of this will undo the experience, nor repair the mangled wreck that will soon be towed away for scrap. None of this will increase my bank account so I can pay off the debt from a loan on a car that is not worth more than it is owed for.

I can rejoice in the fact that in the 29 years I've been driving a car, this is the worst accident I've ever been in. I've traveled thousands of miles across multiple states. And this is the first. I can rejoice that I could get a car that may be better than the one that was totalled. I could rejoice that I have a lot to be thankful for. I have a job after being next to un-employed for well over a year & a half. That I have a home of my own. That I have two totally cute & wonderful little boys. That I have been married to a wonderful wife for almost 8 years.

That I'm alive.

Yeah. That sorta balances things out.