Long Story Short.....but still pretty long

I had quite an emotional day last Friday. I’m on my way to work in the snow. The roads are terrible so I was in no hurry. I was driving approx 10 mph for the most part of my drive because there was so much traffic. About half way to work (and an hour and half on the road) the traffic broke up a bit and I was now driving approx 25-30 mph. And then the guy in front of me slams on his brakes, which, of course, causes me to do the same. As soon as I hit my brakes, I lost complete control of my car. I’m starting to slide sideways, but then luckily (I’m not sure that is the best word to use)…the concrete median stopped me. Thankfully, I didn’t hit anyone and no one hit me, and thankfully, me and baby Thomas were ok…physically…but emotionally was a different story. I rationally ran a quick list of options through my head. 1. Call the police. 2. Call Tom. 3. Move my car from the side of the road so no one hits me. 4. Get out and look at the damage. After I was done with my list, I decided to call Tom first (who was traveling with work). As soon as I heard his voice, I broke down and all rationality went out the window. I was bawling! I couldn’t believe what I had just done and I couldn’t stop thinking about what could have been. Tom was very understanding and calming. He told me not to get out of my car, and to drive it to the next exit. I got off phone with him so I could drive…and I cried all the way to the next exit (which took about 10 minutes cause of the traffic). I parked my car in a parking lot and got out to look at the damage. It could have been much worse, but it wasn’t pretty. My bumper got pretty roughed up. There were some other minor damage to my wheel, headlight and fender. I called Tom again, and again, I couldn’t stop crying. I decided I was going to sit in that parking lot until I could drive again without crying. Tom eventually calmed me down. Once I got off the phone with him, I called work…and as soon as I started talking…I started bawling yet again. I told them I was not going to come in to work. Since I was crying so much I know I made the accident sound much worse then it actually was, but I really couldn’t control myself. Then I called my friend Kim and tell her why I wasn’t going to be at work. She got the worst of my hysteria. I couldn’t even make out words correctly when I was talking to her. I just couldn’t get out of my head “what could have happened”. My mind just kept replaying these vivid terrible thoughts. I was torturing myself. Finally, after talking with Kim, I felt calm enough to drive home. I white-knuckled the steering wheel (hands at 10 and 2 of course) all the way home. Once I got there, I fully focused on Thomas. I sat and monitored his movements just in case the accident (or my stress level) had shaken him up in any way. But he was just as bouncy as ever. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary with him, so at that point I finally started to relax a little. What could have happened, didn’t happen, so I was so very thankful. I know in a previous blog I talked about my improved driving abilities….scratch that. Now my walking and my driving require a whole lot of concentration. I’ve got some precious cargo on board and he needs me to be extra careful.