Today, I crashed

It was probably as good a day as any to crash a car. I crashed our 10year old family car at midday due to driver’s error and illegal activity. Yes... I confess with much shame: I was on my mobile phone. I think I’m just thankful as heck that my carelessness caused no harm to anybody else. I hit a pole. Did you laugh? Did you smirk? I don’t blame you. My carelessness has been a good lesson, sort of one of those occasions we speak of being “only being a matter of time”. What scares me is the curiousity had I not had to face the error of my ways today, if my sliver of conviction regarding the matter would have completely evaporated...

There’s something about the injuring of machines bigger and stronger than you that gently reminds us that being human is no guarantee of invincibility. There. It took about 3 seconds for my eyes to float to my bar of radiation (and for my left over high from the previous night of absolute euphoria) to shrivel like oysters in summer’s sun.

At the time I didn’t think I was so affected. I like to think of myself as a rather resilient and collected character. So I didn’t know how to categorise my emotions or how to recognise most of the symptoms of fear, especially as I wouldn’t usually consider them relevant hours after the incident. Because the fortunate and sheltered life of a middle-upper, living-with-parents twenty-year-old, faces minimal traumatic experiences. And this, this was small. This was no more than the excess of $900 and a week without one of four cars. I saw no casualties, I felt no pain. I only suffering the complaint that the few friends I turned to for emotional comfort/support had reason or another to... not provide sufficient shoulder. But it’s nothing I haven’t already begun to heal and forget. Every little bruise we home on the stretch of our skin fades and is forgotten, because we shed our old skin, little at a time. And forgiveness makes us stronger. I just hope I am a more discerning and understanding friend – though if I'm not, it's no surprise.

If I do have readers on this here canvas of white internet space, they are most probably my friends or people I know who are, likewise: fortunate, sheltered, middle-upper twenty-year-olds.

I want all of you not to use or even pay attention to your phones while driving, it’s dangerous. Secondly, appreciate life on my behalf. Today, I crashed, felt much more sober than I did yesterday; and as vulnerable as any human could, when realising their skins are weaker than composite metals, glass and rubber molds.