Crazy Month (a.k.a. When Shit Hits the Fan)
During Thanksgiving break I finally got home on Saturday at around 5:30-6:00 and I wait around. Usually my mom only works till 4:00 or 5:00 so I figured that it was just traffic holding her up. After an hour of playing Katamari I ended up getting a call.
"Strange," I thought. Most people don't call at this time and I was afraid it was a telemarketer. "Who may I as is calling?"
That threw the girl off guard. "Oh! Um...this is your mother's friend's daughter."
"Oh, this is Sindy, what's up?"
"You're mom's in the hospital in the E.R. right now."
"......" I didn't really know how to take this. But she continued on.
"She wants you to come down though. She's at the Fairfax Hospital right now. Oh, but don't worry, she's fine. She's just got into a car accident."
After a few more passing of words I hung up.
That was by far one of the worst messages I've gotten in my life. A bunch of things were running through my head. Mostly like WHAT THE FUCK WAS I GOING TO DO.
After about an hour of mild anxiety and trying to figure out where the hell I was going, I finally arrived at the hospital's E.R.. So the girl (her name is Amy), tried to reassure me that my mom was fine. And in a sense she was......just....on a bed.....in the E.R......with tanks and tubes connected to her.
Well, whatever. At least now I got most of the story:
Turns out my mom was coming home at around 4:00 but instead of taking her normal route, she took the 28 exit. As she was driving someone was speeding and also (recklessly, I assume) changing lanes. As a result, the person basically comes out of nowhere and slams the car into the back right (I think) of my mom's car. As the nurse puts it, luckily she was wearing her seat belt or else she probably would have gone through the windshield. Small condolences, I suppose. But as a result, she has a fractured sternum.
The funny thing was, the only thing I could think of after hearing all of this was: I think this is God's way of telling us that we can't have nice things, considering it was the new car that got totaled. But on the plus side it was the new car that got messed up and probably afforded better protection against the crash (which was later dispelled by Hobie after he said "Well, actually the older car probably would have been better in the crash just because it was heavier." Thanks, Brian. A real ease on the unconscious you are).
I ended up staying with her for the next two nights after that. They finally released her from the hospital, but we had hell of a time getting her back. The only thing they could do was wait for the sternum to naturally heal and the best they could do was give us some strong pain medications.
Needless to say, a majority of the break was spent worrying and idling (with the few exceptions I went out and making fun of people, mostly Cup).
Throughout this though I couldn't help but ask myself a few questions:
"Am I a bad daughter? Could I have prevented this if I just took a few minutes out to call her the night before to tell her that I was coming home?"
Coming back to school didn't help any, either. My lack of motivation from the past week carried onto the week after I came back to school. Desire to do any work was gone and instead filled with a nagging feeling of underacomplishmet and knowledge of impending doom.
It was funny. I was discussing this with Alex in my bookmaking class (actually, discussing this with a lot of people in my bookmaking class), about how lackluster I felt about doing any work. Turns out a lot of people agreed with me, so I wasn't the only one. But after a while, I got tired of sitting around and wandered around. The Armory was busy with people trying to finish up their portfolio and get it packaged up before the submission date. I ended up seeing Wei and Jamie (which in it of itself is a bit strange, but I think mostly because she's a relic of high school life) trying to finish their stuff and it made me realize: Hey, at least I don't have to worry about working a portfolio that may or may not get me into my major. Alex and I ended up wandering around the Armory till 11:00 just chatting and critiquing people who asked for help. It was definitely a fun time, and certainly gave me perspective on my worries. It still didn't motivate me, but at least I was less morose.
I don't know what to say. Nothing much has changed since those days except that I feel more overwhelmed now and have a mild anxiety---well anxiety may be too strong of a word. I have a mild worrying issues with the upcoming two weeks.
What's worst is the fact that I'm so conditioned to do work last minute that that's when I pull out my best ideas. Although someone did point out an interesting issue about that. It wasn't necessarily y that you're doing your best work under stress, it was that you have no choice but to finish your work. Or something along those lines.
Ah, and to top it all off, I've been consistently running my credit card bill so I end up charging over $300 almost every month (mental note: New Year's resolution - only charge about $100 each month). The worst of it it is the fact that Thanksgiving break ended up taking about $150 out of my normal paycheck. Luckily, I have just enough to pay for my portion of the rent this month (sorry Vinci, for coping out. I'll get it to you after I get home).
One of the few silver linings is the fact that at least I'm not depressed. Just.... a bit anxious.
I can't wait till after the 13th. I need to figure out what the fuck to do.
And on a tangent, I'm not sure if anybody has ever dealt with this, but what would you do in case of a car crash as bad as this? Would you seek legal council? And what's stranger yet, I haven't been able to get in contact with the police officer who filed the accident. I did file this with the insurance agency, but I've been a bit in the dark since getting back to school.
But seriously, what the hell do you do in this situation?