i'm not even sure where to start

on thursday it was kind of slow at work, and just about everyone was working, and so i asked to go home early. with the move and working 6 days in a row, i was tired and just wanted to go home and do some unpacking and eat a real meal in my new kitchen (not just eat something in the car or standing up). because there were so many of us at work, i got to leave at 4:30. i thought about stopping to buy some groceries, i thought again about stopping at joann's to pick up a box to make a charging center like this, i thought about a million things i should do before going home but i just wanted to be home so badly! so i just drove home.

about a mile away from the house i came up to the top of the hill. the road that had been so nicely sanded and cleared of snow and ice up to then was suddenly covered in a thick layer of white, milky ice. there was literally a line; on one side was dark, black, wet concrete, and on the other was a long stretch of uninterrupted whiteness. i started to slow down, carefully because i didn't want to slide. too late! i realized then that sitting in the middle of the road was a car, and i tried slowing down more. i slid around and felt my rear end fishtail almost out of control, i took that split second to weigh my options realizing that on my right was a guard rail, and to my left was oncoming traffic. i wasn't slowing down and so i started honking so that the car that was just sitting there would realize i could not stop, then right before i hit i put my hands up like "i give up" and yelled oh shit. the front of my car crumpled like on tv, my glasses flew off my face, i crashed into the steering wheel and everything flew to the front of my car. two seconds later, two seconds that felt like hours suspended underwater, and the car behind me crashed into me, spinning me to the right and taking off most of the left of my bumper. i sat there for a second, thinking, "no way." after all, i'm 29 years old and have never even been in a fender bender. a moment later i panicked because i couldn't see, everything was crazy blurry and then i realized i didn't have my glasses on. i couldn't see them, so i put on my sunglasses to hunt for them. i saw one of the other drivers shaking his head at me when he saw me, like "stupid fucking girl wearing sunglasses in the dark" but they're prescription and in the dark i see even worse so i had to use them to find mine. i thought about how ralphie stepped on his when he shot them off his head at the end of the movie and started worrying about crushing mine. i found them under my brake pedal, covered in cold coffee and dirt. i got out of my car, shaky and freaking out, with the wind knocked out of me (thanks for deploying, airbag! oh wait, you didn't. jerk!) and started making calls. i got a hold of a friend's boyfriend first on accident; he had her phone and i didn't realize it. he was incredibly sweet and wonderful, but i needed to talk to someone i knew. standing there in the freezing wind i noticed that i left my car on, saw what damage was done, and looked around to see who else was involved in the crash. it was a bunch of guys. one of them freaking out pretty badly. he was a younger kid, maybe in his mid-twenties, shaking and almost crying, and there was another guy in a bright orange vest, like the kind you see on city workers by the side of the road, telling him that everything was going to be okay, that he had just gotten out of the heart ward of the hospital and the fact that we were all up and walking around was good. his car might be hurt, but he wasn't and that was important. the man in the orange vest has super shaggy hair, down to his shoulders and curly; dark with light ends. he was tanned and lean, short for a man and oddly efficient. everyone was looking at me, the only woman involved, standing there in the snow, covered in coffee, wearing a skirt, an old pair of black slip-on sneakers that i like to drive in, and a blank look on my face. it was too cold to stand there, so i got back into the car and turned it off.

it didn't take long for the cops to show up. one of them knocked on my window and i opened my door (weird but i didn't want to risk my window breaking again). he asked me a bunch of questions and i thought i was talking out loud but he kept yelling "what?!" at me and glaring. my throat hurt and felt dry, i kept thinking "i should be crying, why am i not crying?" and tried to talk up. i tried calling mom but she wasn't answering. i called my sister, and she answered with an angry voice because we've been fighting, but once i told her what happened (four-car pile up, my car is scrunched, i think this is bad) she softened. she stayed on the phone with me while i dug out my registration and insurance card, she told me stories and jokes and tried to shake me from the daze i was in. the cops came back and asked me some questions, gave me some forms to fill out, yelled at me some more to speak up.

at some point a woman driving by the scene stopped. she had on one of those jackets that looks like a sleeping bag with sleeves, a dusty purple color, like a bruise, wild white hair fluffed out about her face. it was windy, the thin strands of her hair floated around her like they had a life of her own. she came up to all of us, said something to the men, hugged a few of them. i assumed she knew one of them, then she came knocking on my passenger side window. i was confused, but said, "yeah?" she opened the car door, asked if i was hurt, did i need to talk? i shook my head no, went back to lay my head on the steering wheel when she stopped me, told me she just wanted me to know that jesus has a very special plan for me, and that i needed to know that. she was praying for me, and we were all very lucky not to be hurt or dead. i murmured an agreement on this last point, then put my head on the steering wheel and went to ignoring her. what a time for prostelyzing. she god blessed me and shut the door. thinking back on it the virgin mary's on my dash might have made her think i cared about what she was saying, but when she said, "special plan" all i could think was "a broken car? that's his big plan?"

the jackass i hit, the one just sitting there in the road, yelled about how i was "tearing over the hill" and how he "pumped my breaks to get her to slow down" but i just glared at him from inside the car. he had evidently stopped to help someone who slid into a ditch, but instead of pulling a few meters down the road and over to the shoulder he just stopped his car where you couldn't see it until you were over the hill and it was too late. the more i think about this the angrier i feel. if he had just pulled further down the road, over to the side, i would have had room to slide a bit before my tires caught, i wouldn't have had to decide if i was going to hit him, the guard rail, or the traffic coming toward me. i had to make that horrible decision in about half a second, and it says a lot that the guy behind me, the one who saw me sliding and honking and trying to get out of the way couldn't stop either.

i got a ticket, of course. it's about $60 and the least of my concerns. if i pay it within 20 days i get my 4 points reduced to 2. my shoulder hurts, my neck is wonky, i bruised one of my knees up and my ankle is also stiff. i have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. i brought my car to a body shop and they think the damage to the body is more than the car is worth. i rented a ford focus, which oddly enough, is all zippy and fun to drive. of course, i drive it with my teeth clenched and my knuckles white and palms sweaty. every car i see on the road is a potential enemy. i lie in bed at night making mental lists about all the things i have to do, trying to figure out where exactly i'm going to find the money to pay for a new car, why i didn't get full coverage insurance, whether or not the other guy's insurance will pay for anything, trying to remind myself that it could have been worse, i could have been hurt or hurt someone and that this is something that a LOT of people have gone through. of course, explaining this to my brain is small comfort, as it just wants to run through every doomsday scenario over and over again, embellishing each scenario with a little more gruesome detail (i'll end up broke, on the street, with no teeth!). if i sleep at all right now, it's fitfully and in starts and stops. a few hours here, a few hours there, waking up wide awake and unsure of where i am. the move is stressful enough, this was something that could have waited a week or two to happen!

i know that i just have to plow through this, grit my teeth and deal, but i want to just lie in bed for weeks. i might not be sleeping in there, but it's better than facing the real world. my roommate's are upset i'm not unpacked yet (!), and i still have no internet access so i can't really look for a new car or start selling stuff on ebay. luckily my friend M at work, M who was the first person i talked to after the crash and was the most helpful, M who is my new best friend, lent me his computer and connection card for the next few days. i'm going to use it to look up what i should do next, figure out how much a new car might cost me, map out a few plans and start selling stuff.

honestly, i feel totally overwhelmed. this has never happened to me before, and i am woefully unprepared. if you have any advice you can offer, i'd be glad to hear it. i'm going to go unpack some stuff now, maybe set up my bookshelf and listen to some more elliot smith. i do realize that i'm lucky to not be hurt, that walking away from a crash that big is a wonderful thing, but i am kind of freaked out about what i'm going to do next. this was the longest post on earth! sorry. i've been carrying all this around with me for days, making notes on post-its and drawing little pictures of crashing cars on everything. i'll be fine in a day or two, i just need to adjust and figure out what to do next. not having a plan feels a lot like careening down that hill, not able to stop, numb and cold and extremely slow.