I really should have seen that car coming. My life will never be the same.
I’ve got to figure out a way to forgive myself.
I’m so sad I can barely function. All I want to do is eat. I just want to eat and eat and eat till I can’t feel anything but being full. Just curl up and die from a full belly. Probably because I feel so empty inside.
I’m trying to practice self love. I’m trying to take care of myself, but I’m just so sad. I just wish Mother would have flushed it all away. They say it will pass. I hope it will pass, but today it is what it is.
Looking back at it, all the signs were there that I was going to get hit by a car. So obvious now. I was given many signs that I somehow failed to see. Just like I failed to see that car coming.
Maybe it’s true that even had I noticed the warning signs I still would have gotten smashed. My Brothers tell me this was an initiation. Even a few of the books I’ve read since that day claim it was an initiation. It seems it was inevitable. A death, and rebirth. The Hero myth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
The first big sign was a book I had synchronized. I’ve had PTSD all my life, so it wasn’t exactly obvious to me when I started reading: In An Unspoken Voice; How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, by Peter A. Levine. A truly amazing book. The best book I’ve ever read about releasing trauma from the body.
This is normal reading material for me, so I didn’t think anything about it. I’m always reading some book or other about trauma. What’s crazy though, is that he starts the book off by telling his own personal story about getting hit by a car!
He had studied releasing trauma from the body for something like almost forty years. He was walking down the street on his way to meet a good friend, stepped out into the crosswalk, and Bam! So he opens the book with him laying in the street, relating his own story of how he prevented himself from getting PTSD.
This book was the final missing piece for me. The timing of my reading this book was as harmonious as it gets. I now had everything I needed to step out of my own life of trauma. It validated many of the things I’d been practicing for years. It confirmed what I had been telling others about their own trauma. This book is a real master work. It has the tools anyone needs to free themselves of embodied trauma.
Another obvious sign happened at one of my power spots. For me a power spot is a place where I go to clear my mind. I have different ones for different mindsets. For instance, one is a nature spot at a local creek. I have a rock I sit on in the middle of the shallow running water. I go there when I am stressed, or feeling lost.
This time though, I wasn’t stressed, or lost. I was feeling good, which means I had a lot of energy. When I’m feeling high energy I go to the square downtown, and sit front and center. I just sit and clear my mind waiting on someone to come by who needs some extra energy. My intuition was also telling me I should be there that day.
As I was going around the square sizing it up, I noticed a young kid whom I’ve known for over five years now. He’s always been homeless, but I hadn’t seen him for months. I figured he’d skipped town chasing some girl or other, which is common practice for the homeless. He’s always got a girlfriend.
He was looking rough, such that I almost didn’t recognize him. My heart sank as I approached him. The closer I got, the rougher he looked. I was worried he’d been strung out on heroin or meth because he had that pale sickly look to him. We start talking, and he tells me he had been hit by a car crossing the street on foot.
He was still limping badly. He, of course, showed me all his scars. We males are always proud of our scars. He had a huge gash on his head, a hole in his chest, and a long scar going from his foot up his calf from a surgery. Here he was, still living on the streets, and now this, as if this kid didn’t already have it bad enough.
I felt sick inside. There’s just no way I wasn’t going to do something for him. I went and bought him some food, and then went to the hemp dispensary and bought him a bunch of hemp joints, and a pack of hemp cigarettes. The high grade CBD hemp actually does help with pain. I gave him a twenty too, so he could buy some weed.
I wish I’d had more money to help him out, so I went home and cried the rest of the evening.
Some weeks go by. I really should have seen this coming. This last sign for me was in the first. I’m not joking, the night before my accident I was standing in my bedroom talking to my lover, and I said, “This is the first time in my life where nothing is wrong!” I had even written about it that day. Everything was finally in place for me to start above ground. I no longer felt like I was in a hole in life.
I will never make this mistake ever again. I had also forgotten all about Jung’s warning too, about never making such a claim. It all seems so obvious in hindsight. Isn’t it always so easy to see when we look back?
In my excitement about all the material in Levine’s book, I didn’t remember what he had said on the very first page of the first chapter. He said, “It was the beginning of a perfect kind of day, a day when you feel certain that nothing can go wrong, when nothing bad can possibly happen. But it did.” Life really can just completely change almost instantly.
I woke up the next morning, after making a similar declaration, for the first time feeling good about my life. I got on my bike, and started making the same ride I’ve made for over a year.
As I was riding up to the intersection, I was surveying traffic to my left. It’s a long straight stretch so I could see a good way down the road. The only cars I saw were all the way down at the next light, so it seemed all good. On the right it’s a hill going over the railroad, which makes it dangerous because cars will be coming over the hill very fast. I looked left again, still no cars coming, then looked right back to the hill. By the time I reached the intersection the light had turned yellow, so I started out across the intersection paying attention to the hill, and as I looked left again, I got hit by a Jeep.
It happened such that I didn’t even get to flinch. No reaction time at all. He basically just drove right through me. The driver wasn’t paying attention because he didn’t honk, swerve, brake, or react at all. He was in the far lane too. There’s plenty of light at this intersection. He was doing at least 45mph.
If I ever brag about being tough; believe it.
I’ve gone back to this intersection many times, driving in the lane as he was, wondering how he didn’t see me. He was probably on his phone. I don’t think it’s all his fault by any means, but he definitely wasn’t paying attention.
Everyone has a different opinion about fault in this accident. All I know is; praise the Lord Hallelujah I had health insurance, because most of my life I have not. My initial hospital stay was almost 200k.
If I had been even six inches further out into his lane I’d be dead. I’d not have survived a direct impact. His front bumper hit the front wheel of my bike, turning the handle bars such that my left hand hit his vehicle first, which I think spun me down the side of his Jeep. My left arm took the brunt of the impact, and was basically mangled. It had to have been pure instincts on my arms part keeping me out of harms way. I’m pretty sure it wrung my arm like a wet towel.
A CT scan verified I’d had a concussion, so I don’t remember exactly what happened right after impact, but I do remember being immediately conscious laying in the street.
Well, I had read that book, so I knew what I needed to do. I just let it all out. I just screamed and screamed, while rocking myself back and forth, kicking my legs in agony, until the ambulance arrived. The whole innersection came to a halt. No one came near me. I’ve never felt pain like that in my life, and I’ve had a lot of injuries over the years. Nothing even close to that. I just let it all out.
The surgeon told me that he had dreams about putting my forearm back together. They had to do surgery the same day. It took him over six hours. He had to pick out all the tiny bone fragments. He said it’s the most metal he’s ever put in anyone’s arm.
They couldn’t close the wound because of the swelling. I had to have three surgeries in seven days. The third one ended up being a skin graft because he still couldn’t close the wound. The surgeon for my shoulder told me I’m lucky it didn’t rip my whole arm off. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind about how “lucky” I am.
My only issue now is the sadness. I just can’t help but feel that I let myself down really bad. All my life I’ve been an athlete. I had just gotten my blue belt in Jujitsu, and was already working on my purple belt test. The guys at the gym love me.
There I was thinking my life was finally going to be what I wanted it to be. SMASH! I’ve spent my whole life overcoming my childhood trauma, and was finally poised to start having good things. BAM! I had just spent two years learning to be a diesel mechanic, and had spent something like 20k on tools, setting myself up to be one of the best. I finally had a career. FLUSH!
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that God doesn’t hate me. That I’m just never good enough.
I’ve literally got over ten thousand miles on a bicycle. This event has completely robbed me of my confidence. It’s made me unable to trust my own mind, because I cannot figure out how I didn’t see that vehicle coming. I would never edge out into an intersection if I thought it would even remotely be a close call at all. Never.
It’s almost like my mind just blocked it out on purpose. It’s almost like my unconscious wanted me to get hit by that vehicle.
What no one can explain is how my hand didn’t get obliterated. Don’t get me wrong, it is still badly damaged. I still have nerve damage. It still tingles, and doesn’t work right. My arm will never be the same, but somehow magically, I am able to type.
All I can figure is, that I am supposed to write. I don’t know what else to do.
Somehow though, I’ve got to figure out a way to forgive myself. I really let myself down this time. I think, after this life I’ve had, if the worst I do is eat too much for a while; I’m doing alright.
