Purpose (836 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 1.9 on 23 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Envenom (View user info) at 2005-04-25 23:37:58 EDT
I often wonder why things happen the way they do. I wonder it almost as often as I wonder if there is any point in wondering. Is there some greater message behind this? If I were somehow able to zoom out and see "the big picture" would things suddenly make sense? If certain events that seemed insignificant at the time had occurred differently, would it have affected the outcome?
It's shortly after ten o'clock, and I've just gotten off from a long day's work. My girlfriend called me minutes before, right at ten, just as she always does. She does this day in and day out despite the fact that she knows I don't get off right at ten. I have to wrap up my transactions, close out all my programs, shut my computer down, clock out. I almost never make it out of there before ten after, but she insists on calling me right at ten, and does so like clockwork. Today was no different, and as usual, I was unable to answer because I was wrapping up a transaction with a customer. As I start to head out of the building I return her call, but she's on the other line and has to call me back.
I exit the building and get in my car. I begin to pull out and get just outside of the parking lot when I realize I forgot my lunch in the refrigerator, and knowing that my fridge at home is emptier than Gund Arena come playoff time, I head back. After going inside and grabbing my food I return to my vehicle and once again begin my journey home. As I'm nearing the exit to the business park my girl calls back. We begin to go through our daily formalities. You know, those questions that become so routine that half the time you don't even listen for the answer. It's not that you don't care, your brain just has away of automatically tuning the other person out until it's your turn to speak. It's a defense mechanism I suppose. My job stresses me out enough without having to relive each excruciatingly unbearable moment of someone else's equally stressful day.
"How was your day?" I ask. She asks the same, but before I get to respond there is a white light, a loud noise, and then silence.
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I never saw the vehicle that struck me. Not before the accident, and not after. The white lights glaring in my window were the only warning I had to brace myself for impact, but it was too little too late. I hear the chilling yet all too familiar sound of crunching metal combined with shattering glass. I smell the familiar smell of airbag, but there is no time to acknowledge these sensations as the vehicle spins out of control across two more lanes. Luckily, the vehicle that struck me was the only one traveling this road, which is usually pretty dead this time of night aside from the stragglers leaving the business park, and my car rolls harmlessly to a stop.
I try several times to open the door, part of which is now in my lap, but it's no use. I try and wiggle my legs out from under the dash so I can pull myself out the passenger door. This is not an easy task as my legs hurt from when they hit the dash (or when the dash hit my legs?) but I manage. I get out of the vehicle and fall down in the grass. I worry not about the pain in my legs even though it has occurred to me that they might be broken, as I know this is much better than the alternative of not being able to feel them at all.
A crowd appears out of nowhere. The other driver runs up out of nowhere and asks if I'm all right. I nod in acknowledgement and he turns to examine the pile of scrap metal that once was his vehicle. I suddenly remember the phone call, but my phone is still in the car, somewhere amidst the chaos that is now the driver's seat. I start to sit up as if to move towards the vehicle, but somebody stops me. I pair of hands hold my neck steady from behind and a voice asks me not to move.
Upon my request, after several minutes of searching one of the observers manages to fish my phone out of the car and brings it to me. I see the timer is still going, and hear my girl yelling "hello, hello???" At some point after several minutes of silence she just got in the car and started driving. She hasn't been to my job since I started working there several months ago. She's knows the general vicinity but not how to get there. I know where she's coming from and where I'm at but can't seem to piece the two together. It soon becomes moot as the paramedics decide that despite my instance that I'm ok, they're taking me to the hospital, and they tell her to meet me there.
The ride to the hospital is probably the most painful few minutes of my life. I'm strapped to a plastic board, back aching and bouncing up and down every time we go over a speed bump as the driver rushes me to the emergency room. I advise the paramedic that speeding is doing more harm than good, but before he has an opportunity to explain why he's rushing me there I find out on my own. I'm suddenly having a very hard time breathing. Collapsed lung? Broken ribs? Worse? The paramedic gives me the reassuring news that if I don't start breathing better he's going to have to stick a giant needle in my chest and doesn't feel comfortable doing so without an extra set of hands. This is longest ten minutes of my life.
I reach the hospital without being turned into a human shish kebab. They cut me out of my clothes and begin to examine my injuries. They take numerous X-Rays, and I'm wheeled into a room to wait. Miraculously, they find nothing.
Seeing that I'm in obvious pain the doctor asks me if I've ever had morphine. Normally I'm pretty quick on my toes, but in this instance the only response I can manage is "uh.............."
"So you've never had morphine for PAIN before though, right?" the doctor quips. He puts some feel good in my IV but it does little to numb the pain. I can deal with it though, I don't mind the pain, I'm just happy to be here.
Within minutes my girlfriend is brought back into the trauma unit, and they ask me if I can stand. With help I'm able to take a few steps, but as soon as they let go I collapse. The adrenaline is fading and the pain is really beginning to set in, but my vitals are normal and I'm soon wheeled to the exit and discharged.
The pharmacies are closed, and this is to be the most painfully uncomfortable night's sleep I can recall. I was never able to sleep on my back, only on my side, but my ribs are badly bruised so lying on my side is difficult, and my legs are so bruised I can't bare to let them touch. Having cut my clothes into rags they sent me home in a gown, and the distance from the parking lot to my girl's apartment seemed like a mile. As I lie in bed it occurs to me that perhaps this wouldn't have happened if I had just left my food at work and picked up something else to eat on the way home. After all, I went back to get a chef's salad, and it wasn't even a good salad. I didn't like it when I tried to eat it the first time, which is why there was so much left to bring home. All of this over a salad? At a different point in the past I would have been likely to dwell on such a detail and the ensuing pain and expense that resulted, but I shrug it off. I'm just happy to be here.
The day following the accident I'm still barely able to walk but insist I can drive. Driving is much easier than walking at this juncture, and we head out to pick up my rental. I don't really have any intention of driving it anywhere, but get it just in case I need to, and due to the fact that my girl is getting her wisdom teeth pulled the next day this will be my only opportunity. What a lovely pair of cripples we will make. As we are leaving the rental place by some odd coincidence a tow truck pulls out in front of us and on the back of it is the twisted wreckage that once was my vehicle. It is the first time I've seen it since the wreck, and my jaw drops as I stare at it. I look over in the next lane to see that my girl is staring at it too, jaw equally gaping. Overcome with emotion, this is the first time that it really hits me how lucky I am to be breathing, let alone walking.
Several days go by and with each day I can walk a little better. While I still have a noticeable limp, no longer am I dragging my entire left side behind. Parts of me, like my knees for instance, are no longer sore, however my hips don't seem to be able to support my weight very well and my back and ribs still ache. Simple chores like going to the mailbox seem like work, but I don't mind. I'm just glad I can walk.
I'm happy to be here, no doubt, but it's not the "tomorrow his breakfast will taste better than any meal you or I have ever tasted" feeling Brad Pitt describes in Fight Club. Perhaps that feeling is lost on me at this juncture, as I am no stranger to close calls. When I was a child I slipped while walking across a beam, and for a few moments I lost all feeling and movement in my limbs. They found a pre-cancerous polyp in my colon at 20. At 22, I hydroplaned on the freeway and spun out, hitting the base of pole driver-side impact at roughly sixty miles per hour, and emerged from the wreckage without a scratch. At 23 I OD'd. After so many incidents I'm not nearly as surprised to emerge unscathed, but rather perplexed. My good friend Dave still wears a scar like a badge from his car accident several years ago. The accident kept him in the hospital for several months, and the person who was in the vehicle with him is still paralyzed from the neck down. When I was young my best friend's mom (who also happened to be my mom's best friend) was killed in a car accident. Why am I so lucky?
As mentioned before, I never saw the driver that struck me. Perhaps the vehicle came barreling around the corner at an unusually high speed. Perhaps my eyes were weary from staring at a computer screen for ten hours and the vehicle's headlights got lost in the streetlights as my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. Perhaps it was pure carelessness as I was consumed with my phone conversation. (Which would be highly unusual given my "safe driver" status, but possible nonetheless. ) Regardless, when I pulled out, I did not see anything that would obstruct my path and yet I drove straight into harm's way just as blindly as Jonesy walked towards Duddits in the movie Dreamcatcher. What does this mean? Is this intended to be some sort of interstellar wake up call?
In recent weeks I'd all but given up on music. All my life there's only one thing I'd ever been sure of, and it was music. It gives meaning to moments that seem otherwise mundane and consoles me when all seems for naught. From the moments at the age of two when my parents first recognized my musical ability, to the time when I was eight and replied confidently to inquiring elders that I wanted to be a rock star when I grew up, I never once considered any other path. Despite this I was ready to give up on the dream because the person I've been working with for the last six years has become so increasingly difficult that the thing I loved more than anything else in the world no longer held any joy for me. I'd come to the conclusion that I'd rather just give up music all together than to continue working with this person, and even voiced this to my girlfriend who couldn't believe her ears. After all, she knew when she met me that I'd give her all I could but she could never compete with my first love, music, and here I was ready to throw it all away. The easy solution would be to find other musicians, but I've scoured this city for musicians for the last five years and only managed to turn up this one individual whose talent and creativity rivaled mine. I could expand my search elsewhere, but where?
Any time that I'm left alone with my thoughts the analytical side of my brain runs wild, and this time is no different. All of this happened because of a salad. Salad spelled backwards is Dallas. (Sort of) Am I supposed to go to Dallas? I turned down a job offer in Dallas last year. Is this supposed to be some sort of reoccurring theme? Cleveland's too cold, and the economy is poor. Traffic is hell in Boston. I have no interest in NY, and LA seems like a million miles away. Arizona? The cost of living is less expensive than Cali, that's for sure, but that's a long way to go to find a scene that's a mere imitation of the scene I'm looking for. I know there has to be something else out there for me.
Maybe it is nothing more than a coincidence and perhaps I am reading too much into these events, but I find it ironic that every single part of my body is scraped, bruised and sore, with the exception of my wrists and hands, the tools of the musician. It was like a giant bulletin board in the sky saying "hey fucker, are you going to get on the ball, quit whining and play some music or what?" I keep waiting for George Carlin to drop down out of the sky in a phone booth to whisk me away to some futuristic society. Whatever the message behind these events may be, if there was ever any doubt before, after emerging from a mangled heap of metal for a second time without so much as a broken bone, I now know: I'm here for a reason - whatever that reason may be.
User Reviews
Submitted by Envenom (user info) at 2005-09-21 10:04:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Umm....celine, a couple things.
First off, I acknowledged in the post that I had been in accidents previously...
"At 22, I hydroplaned on the freeway and spun out, hitting the base of pole driver-side impact at roughly sixty miles per hour, and emerged from the wreckage without a scratch. "
This is why the smell was "familiar."
And second, it appears your ratings do count.
Submitted by celine (user info) at 2005-09-21 05:02:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
You'd get a +2, but:
There is no such thing as "the familiar smell of airbag" if you've never been in a car accident.
Considering the vast minority of people who know what that smell is, I should have given you -2, but for some reason my ratings don't count anyway. Enjoy your perfect rating.
Submitted by manicvelocity (user info) at 2005-09-20 17:55:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is good too.
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2005-06-28 19:59:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2005-06-22 16:51:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by UrbaneMischief (user info) at 2005-05-11 19:43:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
get your ass to ubercamping
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-04-29 12:31:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by AshK (user info) at 2005-04-26 15:32:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Envenom (user info) at 2005-04-26 13:26:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I've always been a firm believer and purpose, and although I may seem "unbreakable" right now I have a feeling that once my purpose is fulfilled I will very quickly make the transformation from "unbreakable" to Mr. Glass. I look at people throughout history, particularly musicians, and see a trend. Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, John Lennon, Jim Morrison - they all did what they were here to do, touched millions of lives, and moved on. Kind of makes me wonder why Trent Reznor's still alive.
Like I said, I never saw the vehicle but the police report tells me it was a pickup truck of the Ford variety. It sure felt like a pickup truck.
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2005-04-26 12:43:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Been there myself man, definitely been there myself.
Submitted by Totally_useless (user info) at 2005-04-26 12:32:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Dude.
That's harsh.
This was a very good post. It struck a 'personal' chord with a fellow music LOVER. Feel better Chris. Talk soon. Oh, and just because you don't like NY, don't count out NJ. There's music overflowing the borders here.
Peace.
(Get a prescription for medi-weed, I hear it's dy-no-mite!)
Submitted by peckerhead (user info) at 2005-04-26 10:41:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great story and well told. I'm glad you're still with us.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2005-04-26 10:28:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
We all need to get our asses kicked once in a while to keep up in line.
Submitted by TheSpook (user info) at 2005-04-26 09:47:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
And I thought I was having a bad day. Really puts things in perspective.
If you move to Texas, let me know. A band I know moved down there from Cleveland. They can really jam, somewhere in Austin I think.
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2005-04-26 09:16:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2005-04-26 08:56:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yeah.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2005-04-26 08:13:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm happy to be here, no doubt, but it's not the "tomorrow his breakfast will taste better than any meal you or I have ever tasted" feeling Brad Pitt describes in Fight Club. Perhaps that feeling is lost on me at this juncture, as I am no stranger to close calls. When I was a child I slipped while walking across a beam, and for a few moments I lost all feeling and movement in my limbs. They found a pre-cancerous polyp in my colon at 20. At 22, I hydroplaned on the freeway and spun out, hitting the base of pole driver-side impact at roughly sixty miles per hour, and emerged from the wreckage without a scratch. At 23 I OD'd. After so many incidents I'm not nearly as surprised to emerge unscathed, but rather perplexed. My good friend Dave still wears a scar like a badge from his car accident several years ago. The accident kept him in the hospital for several months, and the person who was in the vehicle with him is still paralyzed from the neck down. When I was young my best friend's mom (who also happened to be my mom's best friend) was killed in a car accident. Why am I so lucky?
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Dude, your like Bruce Willis in Unbreakable, although hopefully hairer and with a more realistic face.
Submitted by Ducky (user info) at 2005-04-26 07:53:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow. Sometimes when I have a really close call, I think of it as God giving me a little slap on the wrist and telling me to be more careful next time. That's a big slap. Glad you made it through.
Submitted by absolutzero (user info) at 2005-04-26 04:10:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
God Bless u pal.
...Will pray for you
Meanwhile, Look at it like this.
We are all glad you don't fly planes.
;)
Submitted by Wazza (user info) at 2005-04-26 02:45:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Just is that your times not up yet.
Submitted by kai070169 (user info) at 2005-04-26 02:38:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Holy head injury!
Submitted by Mr.Brightside (user info) at 2005-04-26 01:33:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
couldnt have said it better myself
Submitted by LuckyGuyLikeMe (user info) at 2005-04-26 00:26:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
wow.... I'm sure God has a plan for you, you just have to pray and find out what it is... I'll be praying for you...