refocus

the night before i returned to school i woke up around 5:30 from a dream that involved my old friend MJ. as i lay there in and out of sleep, i was drawn into a calm place in which i suddenly felt as if i had finished a mission. it made me a bit sad. i have been skipping around the subject of mortality a lot in the last few month, most likely induced by my slow bodily disintegration. not that i haven't been calmly coming apart for a long time, but it is getting harder, and after long periods of just feeling tired and unmotivated, it gets hard to refocus and find something new to concentrate upon. a good day, one in which i felt pretty ok and had some satisfaction about how i spent my time, can do wonders for my motivation.


i had been in sort of zen state of calm despite the left turn i have had to take with my relationship with austin. i sort of felt like i was completed with the missions. there didn't appear to be anything else that i felt like i had been sent to do or achieve. so i just laid there, sort of sad, and sort of resigned.


on the way to work i came up to the first stoplight after i got off the interstate and the light turned yellow. i had one of my moments of hesitation about whether to shoot the light or stop. usually, i shoot it. this time, i slammed on the brakes.


i didn't realize how hard a stop it would be, and i skidded to the lip of the intersection. rightly so, i had braked, for the light was at red by the time i came to a halt.


my foot was solidly planted on the brake still as i happen to glance into the rear view mirror in time to see a huge white tree trimming truck, complete with trailer, barreling full blast right towards me. i saw him sliding sideways trying to miss me, but i knew it was coming and could only watch...


and then he somehow slid past me into the right hand lane and roared across the intersection well after the light had turned red, seemingly not slowing at all, even after he had cleared the intersection.


it seemed like i sat there for 2 minutes with my foot frozen on the brake, stunned. it was more of a shock, however, the next day.


for a week i had had something annoying rolling around in my trunk, and i had been too lazy to get out and check on it. i was at WAWA filling up the car with gas, and i was going to head from there to charlottesville to deliver austin's baseball playbook to him. while i was filling up the gas and had the time, i opened the trunk.


what had been rolling around was the full tank of propane gas that i had purchased the week before in anticipation of hurricane irene and not being able to cook. the empty 5 gallon gas tank that i had never filled up was also in there. then i got it.


i took the detour home to rid myself of those items and spent some wondering time. wondering why i had not immediately taken those things out of my car when i had returned the day i got them. normally, i am phobic about driving with gas in the car, period. how i could have ridden around for a week with flammables in the trunk is beyond me.


but what was NOT beyond me was the fact that had the trimming truck hit me, i would have been immediately incinerated.


i got the message. i still have work to do.