The crash

There are some things that happen to you in life that never leave you. Some are the memories that fill us with joy, that we turn to when we are in pain, that give us hope for our lives. And others are the most painful things that we have ever experienced, that return to us time and time again throughout our lives in the form of nightmares that make us wake in a cold sweat. No matter what we do, we will all experience both of these, and they will stay with us forever. We often wish to forget the painful memories, but they are just as important to hold on to as the happy ones. They give us the ability to see through the darkness. They remind us that things could be worse, and have been worse, and that we made it through those times. Knowing that gives us the strength to make it through the dark times.

I wouldn't be surprised if people thought I was too young to experience these kinds of things. These dark memories that haunt me and always will. But there is no minimum age that these come at. They could happen when you're five, and they could happen when you're thirty-five. I've been through several of them, and I freely admit it. I try not to think about them, but it's impossible not to at times. But I know that they're important to hold on to, and to understand.

I was making a night time drive, making my way up to college on my own for the first time. I was already kind of on edge. I had only just begun to live on my own for the first time, and I was never much of one for driving in the first place. It took a good deal of focus not to dwell on the uncertainties that I was already faced with, and I tried to use the road to do so. Nothing was off. It was just dark, and I had my music playing. Nothing was strange.

I looked down for a moment to check something. Whatever that something was is the only thing I can't remember. Before I looked down, there was nothing wrong with the road. I had plenty of space in front of me, I was on pace with the other cars, everything was fine. I looked back, and suddenly I was faced with a full stopped car, and quickly shortening ground between us. My foot slammed into the brakes, and it only took half a second for me to know I wasn't going to stop in time. I tried to swerve to the left, into an empty lane, but the momentum of my car wouldn't allow me to move from side to side.

I couldn't stop in time. I couldn't get out of the way. There was nothing I could do. All of this had happened in the space of maybe three seconds. I was maybe a dozen feet away from the other car, and all I could think was "I'm sorry."

If you've ever seen a frame by frame of an animation, you know what the next split second was like. Only half a second went by, but there were three distinct moments. In the first, the crash itself occurred. There was an explosion of sound, the pounding of the airbags against my face, a jolt that shot through my body as he forward momentum of my car abruptly came to a stop.

In the second, there was nothing. My music never stopped playing, but I could hear nothing. I was still smashing forward against the belt and airbag, but I felt nothing. There was darkness as my eyes instinctively closed. It was as if, in the not even half of a moment, I had simply ceased to be. I've often heard that, in the instance before death, a person feels bone chillingly cold. I did not. I did not feel cold or hot. I felt nothing.

In the third and final moment, I was suddenly dropped back into existence from the nothingness I had so briefly experienced. I could hear cars continuing to drive by me, my music kept playing, and my emergency blinkers methodically ticked away. It took me a second to realize my glasses had flown off my face, and the reason I couldn't see was because of that, not because something had happened to me eyes. I felt sore, but as I patted around myself I couldn't find any injuries.

I didn't know what to do. If I had to go through this again, I probably still wouldn't know. All I could think about was how glad I was to be alive, and how deeply I wished the people in the other car were as well. My heart was pounding hard, and I couldn't do anything from where I was. I couldn't find my phone, or my glasses, and I certainly couldn't make the car move.

A lot of other things happened after that, and I remember them just as distinctly. But the thing that scares me is the crash. It's a miracle that I lived through it, much less experienced so little injury. Sometimes I can't help but think about it. I can't help but picture how I could have died, pierced by broken metal or glass. It terrifies me. It takes everything I have not to be crippled by what happened and what could have happened.

And yet I'm still here. I'm still moving forward. I'm alive, and I'm well, and I'm still doing the best I can to do what I want and need. Remembering this is painful. I can physically feel the pain that was and could have been when I crashed. But I can't just forget it. I have to remember it. I have to remember it because, as weak as it makes me, it also gives me strength. I could have died there, but I didn't. I was permitted a chance to keep living. I have to use that.

Death is terrifying. But life is so much more than we give it credit for. Those bright points in my life are so much brighter now that I have such darkness to compare it to. Would I have avoided this if I could? Of course I would. And if I had a second chance to change my past, I probably still would. But I can't. And so, instead, I will use it to better myself.