Split Second

Thursday August 6th began like a normal morning for me, except that I had to be to work early for a 7am meeting. I got up that morning, felt great and was actually running ahead of schedule. I grabbed some breakfast to bring with me in the car and then headed on to work, thinking that if I gave myself enough time I would stop and pick up a Caribou prior to my meeting. There was really no traffic at that time of the morning so I was sailing along pretty good. I take the same route to work every day, those of us that live south and drive to the University call it our "super secret way", as if to imply that nobody else knows about it. =)

I headed north on Snelling to take the ramp to head west on 94, like every other day. Because of how early it was, about 6:20am, there weren't a lot of cars backed up on the ramp and cars seemed to be ignoring the metered lights, even though they were running, and they just proceeded onto the highway. Now usually, if there aren't a lot of cars around, I will slow down slightly anticipating my light turning green so I can just continue on. On this day, there was a car in front of me that at the last minute changed it's lane so it would get the green light, I stayed in my lane and the light was red so I stopped..... then, just like that, something told me to look up in my rear view mirror and what I saw was a blue car heading straight for me and they seemed to be coming fast and then just like that I heard them connect with my car. I can't really describe what it sounded like except to say it sounded like a loud balloon popping; I remember lurching forward, I remember saying "holy f#*!&" and then just like nothing, I pulled to the side of the road off of the ramp and got out of my car. It was almost surreal really, I didn't check to see if I was hurt, I recall my neck burning and feeling much hotter than usual, I wasn't overly anxious or anything, I looked at my car and at the gentleman's car that hit me and all he had to say was "well, it looks like my car got the worst of it." A split second is all it took for that to happen, how crazy that I just happened to be at that point at that time on that particular day.

What is somewhat ironic about this is just a couple weeks back, I was talking to my mom after reading this blog http://jodyferlaak.blogspot.com/2009/07/mother-remembers-long-detailed-post.html and we were talking about how there are times when you are in the right place at the wrong time or maybe even in the wrong place at the right time?!?. I questioned how many times in all of our lives have we cheated death or injury because we stopped for an unscheduled cup of coffee, or realized we forgot something at home or stopped for a pedestrian that wanted to cross the street? I guess on this particular day, I was meant to be at that spot. I will always question "why me" and "what if". In the meantime, I just feel fortunate that the only thing needing major repairs is my car and that I still have my life (even though as I sit here typing this my head pounds and I feel achy all over).

I thank God that I was able to walk away from that accident. Will I drive differently or be apprehensive about cars coming up behind me in busy traffic or on ramps, I suppose maybe for a while but then I will go back to my normal ways and hope that I don't have another split second situation in a long long time.