almost dead but still alive
I almost died at seven o'clock in the morning yesterday on an icy road. Seven o'clock, and my car was doing full spins and a cement wall seemed to leap forward at the car and me, and I'm thinking, "It's not supposed to be like this." I've been in perilous situations before, but I've never felt my mortality rise up and arch towards the sky like this. It was like my life was hovering over my head for a moment and then, an angel snatched it back into my body and said, "Breathe, baby-girl, breathe," and I did just as I hit the wall. Seven o'clock, I was hysterical on an icy road, sitting on the shoulder, and a motorist saw me and tried to comfort me. "See, your gas lid popped open, but it's okay. You banged your car up a bit, but it looked like it could have been a lot worse. I don't know how it happened. You're lucky to be alive."

"Are you okay?" he wondered, and I, not wanting to be perceived as a weak woman, bit back tears and said, "I'm okay." "I am shaken up," I kept telling him, before I closed my car door and rested my head on the steering wheel and just screamed and sobbed and let the animal in my throat loose. I have never felt so alone or so afraid, which seems silly saying now because I am alive and have faced worse. It's just that I felt so disconnected from my life and who I was meant to be.

I had to pull it together so I could open the store in time for shoppers that abused me all day long. One of my co-workers came early to help; however, I had no one with a key to help me until almost nine hours later. So I spent the day, when I should have been nursing wounds, taking care of obstinate, angry people--massaging their hands, scalps, shoulders, and spines. If I hadn't gone into the store, I couldn't have processed payroll early and no one would have gotten their holiday checks. There's too much of me being Atlas and not enough of me being truly taken care of by the world around me. I wanted to hide and curl up in a dark place, the same impulse, I imagine, that dogs and cats have when they want to die away from their human companions.

I almost died and truly, a part of me would have welcomed it because it's been a rough year for me here in Philadelphia. It isn't that I am unloved; it's just that I am working too much and not having anything left over for myself. I told myself that coming here would involve some sacrifices in the short-term so that my long-term, wholly realised spiritual and physical self could be discovered. All I know is that I wasn't made for snow, ice, or the rude motorists that honked and screamed at me as I tried to turn my car around and get back on the icy road that had almost taken my life from me.

I wasn't made to be this alone beneath such a wide, unforgiving sky. Most of the friends I have are so far away, and sometimes, I feel that they don't care because I stretch out my hands to reach them and find silence. The saddest part of this is that it feels like my very best friends, my true comrades and family, are happier without me in their lives. I feel so wounded and bruised and scared and like I never want to get in my car again.

My heart and body hurt, and even in this, I'm currently resisting the urge to erase these words, make them private, because it won't do any good to make some nice person's day a little cloudy or reveal this much of my inner turmoil. What I am saying is I was alone and I almost died and the sickening cry of my heart was that it might not matter this year as much as it might have mattered a year or two ago.

I am more alone now than ever, and that's just how it is. I won't even try to find the lesson in it. The hurt's still too fresh.

talullah jewel