ID42012

Last night I had an experience of the near death variety....  again.........

Imagine if you will...  The place: Northbound on the 5 freeway.  The time: 3:43am....

No wait... let's backtrack a little more...  

Yesterday was July 4th!  Our nation's Independence Day.  It's a big deal holiday.  I had the day off.  Unfortunately, it landed on a Wednesday this year, so there was no hard core partying as everyone was expected back at work the next day.  Still, DJ and all our friends ended up at Disneyland.  It was a gorgeous day.  Not as crowded as I was expecting... not too hot... no one was behaving badly... so the day just got better and better.  We had a few drinks... went on a few rides...  but mostly we just hung out with each other.  Something that hasn't happened in such a way in much too long of a time.  Around 9:15 we decided to get a spot for the special ID4 Fireworks show.  Again, unfortunately... it was PACKED!  DJ and I decided to take the opportunity to sneak out before the immense rush of all those people that run for the parking lots as soon as the show is over.  We ended up getting off the tram just in time to see the show from afar in the parking lot.  It was beautiful.  I was feeling such a state of happiness that nothing could mar my mood.  Not even the impending drive home.......  We stopped off at a Denny's, split some greasy fried food and continued on to his house that is within walking distance of the park.  Again.... unfortunately, I got comfy and we fell asleep.  This is not so unfortunate, but not exactly advantageous when I am meant to be at work at 8am the next morning and we never set an alarm.  I woke with a start around 2:45 and started to get ready to leave.  DJ was trying to talk me into staying... calling out sick...  just getting back in bed to snuggle and rest.  I couldn't... or maybe wouldn't.  Either way... I left.  

It's not the first time I have driven home ridiculously late... or early depending on how you look at it.  I was not drunk.  I was not even tired.  I just knew I had to leave so that I could get a few hours rest before I had to start getting ready for work.    

The drive home was easy.  Until I hit the dreaded aforementioned time and place...  Then everything changed...

I was driving about 75mph by this time.  The roads were so clear and I just wanted to get home.  I was going northbound on the 5 freeway.  I had just hit the point where an extra lane forms on the left side to allow for the ramp from the 5 onto the 710...  I had almost hit the home stretch.  There was a car to my immediate right.  Going slightly faster then I was.  I don't like driving in that lane much.  I don't like being close to the wall, especially when there is another car right next to me.  It makes me nervous, I'm sure I am not alone in that.  So lalala... driving along... listening to Under the Sea playing... singing along with it....  practically able to feel my bed I'm so close to home....

For a split second I thought the headlights were on the other side of the center divider.  How could they be otherwise?  Before I even had time to finish the thought....  "What is tha....." I realized that heading directly toward me are headlights.  They are not on the other side of the wall.  They are attached to a car that is in front of me... heading the wrong way on the freeway and traveling in the lane I am.  Somehow... instead of freaking out as I always imagine myself doing, a state of calm came over me. I checked to my right, saw the previously mentioned car, applied the breaks slightly to let him get ahead of me, and zigged into the next lane ... barely missing running head on into the other car.  All of this seems like it should have taken a longer time then it did, it took mere seconds.  Good thing too, or I would have hit the car... or both cars....  I swung back into my previous lane and checked my rear view mirror just as the car went out of sight behind a curve in the freeway.

I continued up the ramp and before I could even think about stopping I was on the 710 freeway.  The other car did not falter or crash or anything that I could tell, so I decided I would call 911 to report it and just continue on my way.  What else could I do aside from looping around and attempting to find the car to make sure everything was fine.  Everything aside from the obvious anyway.  Several problems to this course of action soon arose however...  

First, my cell phone had died.  I thought it was charging on the drive home, but when I grabbed it to make the call, it was completely dead.  

Second, everything had happened so fast.  I couldn't tell you what kind of car it was... or even what color.  So assuming it wasn't still traveling the wrong way on the freeway, how would the cops or whomever know which car was the one with an obviously impaired driver.  I don't know if there was actually someone in the car.  I don't know if it was even moving forward.  I just know that I barely missed the equivalent of hitting a cement wall going over 100mph.  

Third, my brain once it exited calm and collected mode, went on complete bat shit crazy over thinking mode.  It started making wild leaps to who and what the driver of the car was doing.  I immediately remembered the chains of emails warning people about new gang initiations that were targeting random drivers.  Warnings to not stop if you notice something horribly wrong on your drive as it might be a gang initiate laying in wait for you.  What if that first car to my right was involved.  He was meant to trap me so I had no where to go but head on into the car.  What if I went back to help and somehow found the car... and they ended up shooting me or something.  

I started shaking.  I kept driving.  I obsessively checked my rear view mirror to see if I was being followed.  

Several seconds after my brain knew I was safe and alive, my mp3 player randomly started playing this song...   

Muse, Feeling Good from their album Origin of Symmetry.  The video is a little disturbing, especially the thumbnail they decided to freeze frame for reference here.....  but this has always been one of those songs that makes me happy when it comes on.  The Nina Simone version is good.  The Michael Buble is all right.  But the Muse version is my favorite.  The fact that of the 8gb worth of music on my mp3 player, it chose that moment to play this song...  I don't know.  It made me feel a new kind of life could be mine.  

With everything that has been happening to me the last few years, most of which has been documented on this blog, but some of which is too personal and/or controversial for me to want to detail it for the general public...  I feel like for the first time there is something up there guiding me.  

I am not a religious person.  At all.  I was raised Christian, which isn't really a religion compared to pretty much anything else out there.  I went to Sunday School as a child and the hi-light of that was memorizing bible verses to earn tickets to spend on stuff in their little store.  I saved up enough for the Precious Moments bible.  It was like a religious Chuck E. Cheese.  Then when my mom met my step-dad, we stopped going... and I never looked back.  

I am NOT discounting the existence of a higher power that created life as we know it now.  I just don't necessarily believe that it is God as the bible states, or Allah, or any other human created deity.  I do believe in the science of the universe, the Big Bang and Darwin and all of that.  But that does not mean I don't think there isn't something out there that made all of that possible.  I guess you could say that I believe there is something bigger then us... I just don't know what... and I'm not devoting my Sunday mornings to a chance. 

However, the last few months... or years rather have really made me think about where I am in the universe and who out there cares that I am still here.    

More on this later........