Borrowed breaths

By all accounts, I shouldn’t be alive to type this right now, but I am. And for that I’m blessed.

This morning began like every other morning with the same routines: I was late for work and otherwise unconcerned, the Man was doing his best to make life easier by ironing my shirt at the last minute. As I said, it was every other morning.

I’m almost half-way to work on the Interstate when the back rear right tyre starts to make this funny little noise. I’m in the fast lane going 80mph, but glance across to see what’s going wrong.

In the split second I wonder if I should gently ease across lanes and pull over, the tyre blows.

The car veers into the grass median and I know it’s no longer mine; the steering wheel will not obey. “OhmyGod, ohmyGod, ohmyGod,” I chant calmly. I do not scream. This is really happening, I think, I’m about to die.

It slams into the guardrail and my face goes numb when it hits. I wonder if a chunk of my cheek is gone, but there’s no time to think.

The next thing I can remember is hanging suspended by my seatbelt in the tiny silver hatchback staring down at the ceiling to see if there’s blood – from my face, from my head.

They say afterward that the car ricocheted off the rail and flipped in midair, bouncing on its roof and back into the air again “like a basketball.” It did that five or six times before I found myself suspended; that time is lost to me.

I unstrap the belt and briefly look around for my purse. I need to call for help, I think, I need to call the Man. But I know I have to get out because the gas tank took a knocking. And so I crawl out onto the grass and disturbed dirt.

Behind me my mashed potato and vegetable lunch is splattered inside the car. My bronze sandal rests on the roof face up; the other one is stuck into the dirt next to the car. I look up and a man is there offering me his hand.

“Don’t try to walk,” he says as I try to stand and dust myself off like nothing happened.

I stumble instead and stay seated where I fall, my legs drawn close to my chest.

“OhmyGod, ohmyGod, ohmyGod,” I chant calmly.

Traffic is slowing down to watch the fun as they lead me to someone’s truck. Across the rail a woman who says she’s a doctor shouts directions.

“Let her get some air!”

“Don’t move her!”

“Don’t give her anything to drink!”

They tuck her contact information into the back pocket of my now-filthy jeans. They ask if I’m OK and I’m lucid. I tell them what happened, I quip about lots of things; they look at the press badge dangling from my neck and they know I’m now the victim, not the observer.

I call the Partner-in-Crime and, for the first time, begin to sob. It's the only number I can remember (that scares and comforts me at the same time.) She calls the Man and I wait on the ambulance – and on him. The sirens are close, but I hope the traffic doesn’t keep him.

The Kind Woman calls the office and tells them I won’t be in today; she tells them what happened. It’s funny how even then, work is on the mind. I imagine them in the office glued to the scanner for updates, the same scanner I usually listen to for crime and mayhem. I’m the story today.

The firemen swarm around the silver bullet, but I’m unconcerned. They load me onto the stretcher and I hear the word.

“Baby…”

I open a swollen eye and there he is. I try to smile.

“I know you wanted the day off, but damn,” he says.

“Fuck you,” I say.

He follows behind the ambulance to the hospital. I’m there for almost three hours while they do x-rays and make me wait on results and painkiller prescriptions. I call the People Who Need To Know and lie back.

I thought I was going to die today. By all accounts, I shouldn’t be alive to type this, but I walked out of an almost certainly fatal accident today with a burst blood vessel in one eye, a bruise under that eye, an abrasion on my scalp, some seatbelt burns on my waist, a few cuts on my right foot, some devious whiplash, and my humor intact (and some narcotics to keep the pain down).

I kept saying all evening doing the most mundane of things: “I can’t believe I’m combing my hair right now” and “Look at me, I’m checking my e-mail.”

My parents are taking it surprisingly well – well, other than my mother who’s called me about six times this evening. I have to deal with Geico who’s paying my medical bills, but not for my totaled car since I somehow don’t have collision insurance. But I’m alive.

I don’t know why or how, but I am. I don’t know if I deserve to be, but I am. It changes my perspective on things, on life, on people. I wish I could say something really profound and immensely prophetic right now, but all I can say is

I am blessed. I am a miracle. Take NOTHING for granted.