No Big Deal

Last night around 830 Zirpu and I were coming back from Kaiser and the second session of the diabetes class. We were having an animated discussion about the tree pruning and removal that we are planning - he is planning, which is why it was animated, because I wasn't clear on for much work Zirpu was getting the estimate. Both of us had been extremely annoyed by one of the people in the class, which was adding to the "animation" of our conversation.


Anyway, I was driving a little too fast when we turned off the highway and I didn't feel like I was paying close enough attention. People tend to be a little careless about red lights (and about getting out of the way of emergency vehicles) in Hayward, and I ran a yellow light. We were approaching another light and when I saw it was turning yellow I decided I would stop for it, even though it would be a rather sudden stop.


Did you know that I've had to take two defensive driving courses for jobs I've held in the past? I saw that there was a car waiting to turn right from a gas station, but we were in the left-hand lane. I looked out the rearview mirror to see that there were no cars behind us, and I slammed on the brakes and we stopped. Right afterwards, we got bumped.


I was severely startled. Mind you, the last time I was bumped by another car it was when I got t-boned on the highway and she hit me going probably at least 50mph. My first thought was that we had to get out of the road and was momentarily confused about whether to leave the car in "drive" and move it, or just put it in park and turn on the blinkers.


I asked Zirpu to hop out and talk to the guy. I needed a minute to catch my breath and pull myself together. A minute was about all it took for Zirpu and the other driver to determine that our bumper was slightly scratched on the right corner and he'd lost a left headlight, and neither were worth exchanging information over. Zirpu got back in the car and advised me that "sometimes it's better just to go through the light."


I was furious.


I took a walk when we got home. I could feel that my lower back was cramping up and my left hip was hurting. I figured that the hip was a psychosomatic reaction, and that walking was probably the right thing to do, plus I had some adrenalin that needed expressing. For the first two years after the big wreck my big fear was that I would be in another car accident before I was recovered from that one. One of the reasons I keep doing weight training and in particular exercises for my back and hips is that I think I was in pretty good health when I was in that wreck and wasn't hurt nearly as badly as I could have been. When I wasn't in the best possible health, when I was still recovering, being re-injured was a huge concern for me. I want to be in the best possible health should something like that happen again.



It was no big deal. But it seemed like my body thought it was.