Flashbacks

This will not be a happy, everything-is-punderful post. Feel free to redirect to another webpage, or keep reading you're interested. Just consider yourself warned.

Six and a half years ago I was involved in a pretty serious car accident. In April of 2005, I had left school and was on my way to pick up a friend's son; I was going to babysit that afternoon. I took the interstate towards the mall and was listening Jay Z's "99 Problems." It's funny the things I remember so distinctly about that day. I was in the middle lane heading south. A good distance up ahead, I saw a car in the northbound lane cross into the median and then come into traffic on our side of the highway. It was a small truck and it cut a diagonal across all three lanes of oncoming traffic and went down into the ditch. I remember looking into the rear view mirror to make sure it was clear and I moved into the far left lane, as far away from the truck as I could and slowing down as quickly as I could safely slow down. I remember breathing a sigh of relief when the car into the ditch and then the sharp intake of air as I saw the car come back into traffic. And then, as cliche as it sounds, time slowed down and every detail is etched into my mind. I saw the truck ping off three cars in front of me; everytime it would spin around a full 360 degrees and hit another. It hit the SUV in front of me, which I then rear ended. The truck spun around one final time, nailing my sweet Toyota Corolla in the back before it finally stopped and started smoking. In the median, the front of my car in the bushes, I put my hand up to my face and felt blood. Though I desperately wanted to see my reflection, I knew that once I did, I would be an emotional wreck. I tried to call my mom and couldn't get through. I tried to call my friend, whose son I was going to pick up and couldn't get through. I called my best friend and told her, so calmly, that I had been in a car accident and was likely going to be taken by ambulance to the hospital; I would ask to be taken to the one where my mom works. I looked in the mirror, saw the blood smeared on my face, took a deep breath and got out of the car, where I collapsed. The next thing I remember, I was on a stretcher, being loaded into the ambulance. I remember pleading for the medics to go back to my car and get my purse, my CD case and my school bag. Somehow, I had the foresight to get those things then, which was good because I wasn't able to get into my car until a week later. In the ambulance, I requested that they not belt my arms down. They were afraid I was going to seize, but I was such a state of panic that they took a verbal consent.
I remember being wheeled into the emergency room and being left alone, strapped down in a neck brace for what seemed like hours. It took me awhile to realize that I wasn't at my mom's hospital, but at one across town. I imagined my mom in the ER across town, waiting for me. I was alone and scared and I just wanted my mom. It's amazing how difficult it was to find someone to help me, to call for me and let my family know where I was. At some point, my mom showed up and after rounds of xrays, I was told nothing was wrong. A police officer told me that had my seat been moved up just 2 inches closer to the steering wheel, I could have done much more damage. I was lucky that I was okay.
But what they didn't tell me was that sometimes, they can miss injuries. I spent four months in physical therapy, telling the doctors that something more was wrong, before they realized that I had, in fact, broken my wrist and it had healed improperly and would now cause me lifelong pain. What they didn't tell me was that the reason no one was checking on me was because there were three other people brought in from the accident, all with more serious injuries than my own, including the driver (sidenote: he was drunk at 3:30 in the afternoon. He had found out a few months prior that he was a diabetic, which he denied for a long time. He was driving home to PA and had stopped off for a late lunch and a few beers, which caused him to go into a diabetic shock, which caused the accident). They didn't tell me that it would take two years to settle with the driver's insurance company and that for two years, I would have to think about the accident on a daily basis. They didn't tell me about the paralyzing fear I face. I couldn't drive at all, anywhere for over a month. It was over a year before I could drive on the same stretch of road and several years before I would drive down the highway without thinking of the accident. I mean, as recently as just two years ago, five years after the accident.
And so for the past two years, I've been okay. Until last weekend, when I was driving down that highway and watched a car dip down into the grassy median and begin to spin around until it was pointed towards me, towards oncoming traffic. I slowed, moved as far to the right this time and eventually pulled off the side of the road, shaking. I called 911 and reported the accident and waited there until an ambulance pulled up.
And now I'm not sleeping very well. I'm overly cautious when I'm driving, constantly checking my mirrors and the location of the cars around me. I am replaying my accident over and over again. And did I mention not sleeping? Because all I can think of before I lay my head down is what if I don't ever wake up-- who will love on my boy? Who will make sure that Jason laughs every day? Who will teach E$ all of the things I want to teach him? Who would talk to Myles about college and books? What would life be like for those I would leave behind?
I feel, sometimes too acutely, the worry over death. I worry less about my actual death and more about the life that continues on without me. I don't want to miss out on any of it. I had just gotten to a place where I wasn't paralyzed by the idea of my dying, when this stupid thing happened and the flashbacks are sudden and fierce and I can't sleep.