WOW, now THAT was a hiatus!
0 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 17 May 2011 at 5/17/2011 10:33:00 am.
So the one day I decided to do a blog, blogger was down, a couple weeks ago, and that kinda sabotoged me because ever since then I've been running around crazy and just haven't had a spare minute.
Lots of things have been happening. Big things. it's like when the "Big things" happen (pregnancies, marriages, babies, engagements, breakups, international moves, etc) they all come raining down at once. That, in a nutshell has been my last month.
So it's like all the "meaningful" is happening to everyone else (thank God) and then just a couple bad things, to me directly. Respectively those include:
Mrs Doc is preggers
My brother is engaged
Bronnie in Aus (who we always used to laugh about being the "anti-mother") had her baby
Doc & Mrs Doc have gone
We had to sack an employee as it turns out he is a violent spouse abuser (long story)
I've been to hell & back for work (aka "up north")
We had a near-death experience in an almost fatal car crash which is still only partially sorted out.
I think out of all those things the thing I want to write about now has to be the car wreck, as it's still kind of messing with my mind. The point being, and making an INCREDIBLY long story short, I'm mentally wrestling with it because it HASNT changed my life in a "meaningful" way, and I keep waiting for it to.
The jist of the story is that we drove for 6 hours on a terrible highway that is notorious for being dangerous. We drove responsibly, with everyone in their respective seatbelt/baby seat, at careful speeds and avoided driving in the dark. 10km from our destination, the winter nighttime hours snuck up on us and it was pitch dark for what would have been less than 25 minutes before arriving at the lodge. In this incredibly short (proportionally) fraction of our 6+ hour journey, the typical textbook Botswana asshole drivers who drive drunk with their bright lights on full beam and at 140km an hour literally came out of the woodwork, one of which was hurtling straight toward The Mr. with his high beams on full blast, and completely blinding him altogether at which point a bull was standing in the middle of the highway but totally unseen due to the massive bright lights of the dickhead coming straight at us in the dark. Crash bam boom, and we carreen into oncoming traffic, missing a giant truck by about oh, 3cm, and smashing into a ditch.
And it doesn't end there - I had just taken LJJ to the potty and was putting her back in her seat AS we were driving, so I was facing backwards and crawling between seats like a freakin chimpanzee. This was a process that takes THIRTY SECONDS, MAX and during a long-haul drive of SIX HOURS, and so of course.... when was the exact second that the smash happened? What are the bloody odds? Seriously!? That's 2 out of 3 W's dead for sure, under most circumstances of this nature.
The fact that we WEREN't hurt and that we got out unscathed is like folklore. First of all, the majority of the entire highway is basically an elevated road with several metres' depth of ditches on both sides. Literally gaping chasms on either side which any car going over will either roll repetedly down, or jackknife on its face, if headed down straight-on. The portion of the road in which we crashed was the ONLY section for miles and miles in which the road was *almost* flush with the bottom of the ditch, meaning even though we careened out of control into it, we didn't roll.
Secondly, the oncoming traffic that was speeding straight into us was coming at full speed and also did not have time to divert away from our crashing vehicle. They just kept coming straight ahead, one by one, as our truck was spinning through their lane of traffic. I have no idea how it happened (because I had my ass thrown onto the floor of the passenger seat, and airbags were flying everywhere above my head) but somehow our vehicle went straight between two other cars (one being the jackass who blinded us and just kept going) and the next one just barely squeezed by the passenger side mirror leaving only a scratch.
Thirdly - well, what can I say, two of us out of our seatbelts in a head on? Completely unharmed? NOT crushed to death by the fact that the engine was all but shoved through the front of the 4x4 and into the cockpit? LJJ barely even whimpered. Only when I started screaming like a maniac because I needed someone to blame (so of course I lashed out at the driver, The Mr., even though I knew in my heart there was NOTHING he could've done. I apologized from the bottom of my heart later, of course).
And finally the angels on standby that we then immediately encountered after the drama: Like, just the fact that we had JUST come into cellphone reception as we were so close to the village in which we were staying, we were able to call the cops and get them there to sort us out which was such a blessing. We happened to be travelling with a phone book (???) so we could look up the local cops' number (no telephone-based directory info in BW) Followed by the fact that one of the first vehicles to pass the scene of the accident was a tow truck who could tow our obliterated rig to our lodge right then and there. And then the manager at the lodge who kept the kitchen open past it's operating hours so that while The Mr was doing his statement at the cop shop, LJJ and I could have something to eat... not that I could even process all this, I was so shaken up.
I don't really know what's wrong with me, it's like I've become so cold that I don't even appreciate to the full extent how lucky I am/we are, and this is not as meaningful or valued as it should be. I mean The Mr could be alone right now, missing his wife & kid, which crushes my soul to even think about. Or even worse, he could be widowed AND critically injured or paralyzed or anything else. We all barely scraped by, and here I am just going along like nothing happened and nothing's changed.
Not really sure what I can to to AMPLIFY the occurrence that happend so as to be MORE affected by it, but I feel like I should! I guess I have acknowledged the fact that I have a lot to be grateful for and that how ever you want to call it, being blessed, being lucky, being spared... is a lot to have bestowed upon you. I just need to mull over this a bit more and answer the question "what does this mean to me?" because I've got the guilts for not even so much as feeling even a little affected by it.
Hmm....
Let the mulling begin....
Lots of things have been happening. Big things. it's like when the "Big things" happen (pregnancies, marriages, babies, engagements, breakups, international moves, etc) they all come raining down at once. That, in a nutshell has been my last month.
So it's like all the "meaningful" is happening to everyone else (thank God) and then just a couple bad things, to me directly. Respectively those include:
Mrs Doc is preggers
My brother is engaged
Bronnie in Aus (who we always used to laugh about being the "anti-mother") had her baby
Doc & Mrs Doc have gone
We had to sack an employee as it turns out he is a violent spouse abuser (long story)
I've been to hell & back for work (aka "up north")
We had a near-death experience in an almost fatal car crash which is still only partially sorted out.
I think out of all those things the thing I want to write about now has to be the car wreck, as it's still kind of messing with my mind. The point being, and making an INCREDIBLY long story short, I'm mentally wrestling with it because it HASNT changed my life in a "meaningful" way, and I keep waiting for it to.
The jist of the story is that we drove for 6 hours on a terrible highway that is notorious for being dangerous. We drove responsibly, with everyone in their respective seatbelt/baby seat, at careful speeds and avoided driving in the dark. 10km from our destination, the winter nighttime hours snuck up on us and it was pitch dark for what would have been less than 25 minutes before arriving at the lodge. In this incredibly short (proportionally) fraction of our 6+ hour journey, the typical textbook Botswana asshole drivers who drive drunk with their bright lights on full beam and at 140km an hour literally came out of the woodwork, one of which was hurtling straight toward The Mr. with his high beams on full blast, and completely blinding him altogether at which point a bull was standing in the middle of the highway but totally unseen due to the massive bright lights of the dickhead coming straight at us in the dark. Crash bam boom, and we carreen into oncoming traffic, missing a giant truck by about oh, 3cm, and smashing into a ditch.
And it doesn't end there - I had just taken LJJ to the potty and was putting her back in her seat AS we were driving, so I was facing backwards and crawling between seats like a freakin chimpanzee. This was a process that takes THIRTY SECONDS, MAX and during a long-haul drive of SIX HOURS, and so of course.... when was the exact second that the smash happened? What are the bloody odds? Seriously!? That's 2 out of 3 W's dead for sure, under most circumstances of this nature.
The fact that we WEREN't hurt and that we got out unscathed is like folklore. First of all, the majority of the entire highway is basically an elevated road with several metres' depth of ditches on both sides. Literally gaping chasms on either side which any car going over will either roll repetedly down, or jackknife on its face, if headed down straight-on. The portion of the road in which we crashed was the ONLY section for miles and miles in which the road was *almost* flush with the bottom of the ditch, meaning even though we careened out of control into it, we didn't roll.
Secondly, the oncoming traffic that was speeding straight into us was coming at full speed and also did not have time to divert away from our crashing vehicle. They just kept coming straight ahead, one by one, as our truck was spinning through their lane of traffic. I have no idea how it happened (because I had my ass thrown onto the floor of the passenger seat, and airbags were flying everywhere above my head) but somehow our vehicle went straight between two other cars (one being the jackass who blinded us and just kept going) and the next one just barely squeezed by the passenger side mirror leaving only a scratch.
Thirdly - well, what can I say, two of us out of our seatbelts in a head on? Completely unharmed? NOT crushed to death by the fact that the engine was all but shoved through the front of the 4x4 and into the cockpit? LJJ barely even whimpered. Only when I started screaming like a maniac because I needed someone to blame (so of course I lashed out at the driver, The Mr., even though I knew in my heart there was NOTHING he could've done. I apologized from the bottom of my heart later, of course).
And finally the angels on standby that we then immediately encountered after the drama: Like, just the fact that we had JUST come into cellphone reception as we were so close to the village in which we were staying, we were able to call the cops and get them there to sort us out which was such a blessing. We happened to be travelling with a phone book (???) so we could look up the local cops' number (no telephone-based directory info in BW) Followed by the fact that one of the first vehicles to pass the scene of the accident was a tow truck who could tow our obliterated rig to our lodge right then and there. And then the manager at the lodge who kept the kitchen open past it's operating hours so that while The Mr was doing his statement at the cop shop, LJJ and I could have something to eat... not that I could even process all this, I was so shaken up.
I don't really know what's wrong with me, it's like I've become so cold that I don't even appreciate to the full extent how lucky I am/we are, and this is not as meaningful or valued as it should be. I mean The Mr could be alone right now, missing his wife & kid, which crushes my soul to even think about. Or even worse, he could be widowed AND critically injured or paralyzed or anything else. We all barely scraped by, and here I am just going along like nothing happened and nothing's changed.
Not really sure what I can to to AMPLIFY the occurrence that happend so as to be MORE affected by it, but I feel like I should! I guess I have acknowledged the fact that I have a lot to be grateful for and that how ever you want to call it, being blessed, being lucky, being spared... is a lot to have bestowed upon you. I just need to mull over this a bit more and answer the question "what does this mean to me?" because I've got the guilts for not even so much as feeling even a little affected by it.
Hmm....
Let the mulling begin....
Labels: Meaningful, work trips
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