It's a New Day

Tomorrow I start a new job. A new job and the rest of my life. The second chapter. No, the second Volume. Part Deux. 

I'm scared.

I'm anxious.

I'm employed.

Nothing's wrong.

All is well and has ended well.

And now, this beginning.

With this writing I'm putting a line under things. A line in the sand. A line across the page and everything below it will be after and every thing above, just above, will be the healing time from the accident.

My whole life, entire life is now "before the accident" and "after the accident".  I hope that there will be a time that is "after 'after the accident'". Because I'm really tired of self management, of healing, of not being free to just be.

It may not be easy being green, but Kermit should try mild traumatic brain injury on for a spin.

Mild.

Traumatic.

Brain.

Injury.

I too had a car accident.

Self abortion?

Trying to be in with the cool kids.

But wait. I'm innocent. I was just sitting there being safe, looking both ways, accounting for unpredictables.

Then BAM

Well actually a more crunching sound, crumpling metal, but unrecognizable, because, well, that's the last thing I expected.

And it wasn't until after I woke up. After I'd stopped sliding toward the telephone pole. After I wondered where my seat back went that I realized, "Oh, I've been in an accident".

And here I was trying to write forward, about what's to come, about, at the least the here and now. Not about The Accident.

But I haven't put down a word about it here. My little catholic cubicle.

And perhaps I should. For me, not for you.  Although I'll endeavour to entertain.

The Accident.

I was hit by a car in the first hour of Saturday, November 4, 2006. Anybody see it?  He drove off after he ascertained that I was still alive.

I was at a red light, watching the cars coming from the left, making sure it was rock solid safe before I turned the corner.  I'd been directed by someone as I left work, to 'drive safely'. 

'Drive safely'

What inane instructions.

'Drive safely'

What a useless directive.

And empty talisman.

Drive safely.  

I did, goddamnit! For an hour and a half. 

It was when I was stopped that the damage was done.

Perhaps, 'stop safely' would have been more prophylactic.

Or, 'don't stop, no matter what'.  'Don't stop for a split second because THAT'S when really bad things happen'.

So, my brain was damaged.  And isn't quite back up to snuff. 

And I can feel it here, in my writing. It doesn't flow.

But at least my typing is better.

And so rather than frustrate myself, I'll end.

...or perhaps I can't seem to poetize the whole situation because I'm still 

because it's still

because it's too

because

to really write i have to feel

and to really feel 

what I feel about this whole escapade, depresses me and I've really been trying not to sink into things. 

I've really been flapping my feather bare wings, bucking up, pulling up my socks, looking up...

no wonder i'm so tired

The ground has been so desperately...and this is where it's destroyed, my capacity, the words just don't pop up like they use to

it's like what i want to say is in the other room

some other room

and I can't find the door, even though before, before the accident there were no walls.

So much has come back.

Typing, reading, speaking, joking. (I'm so tired of counting my blessings)

I even remember the first joke I made A.T.A, it was a triumph and the best thing in the world.  I think I knew at that moment that there was a possibility that I may become again.  A slim chance that I might be reunited with myself, whom i'd so carefully crafted. For so long.

What we are, it can be destroyed so quickly. What we are, what we think ourselves to be, it is so vulnerable, so fragile.  And what if what we are is snuffed out, and someone duller, slower, negative and in constant pain replaces us, you, me?

I won't even ask, 'how would I deal' because now I know. I am not a saint.

Because, when I sink down to the floor of myself, really be with what is, something really really devastating happened to me and it's only by tweaking the nerve, by putting my thumb in the blood pudding that can I write with any soul about it. 

And tomorrow, so much that I dreamed I wanted, begins. And I don't know if I'm up for it, after all these years, before the accident of being ready, now that it's here...

Sorry.