Earlier today I was in a car accident. I remember everything that happened up until the moment of impact clearly. I was sitting at a red light waiting for the light to turn green. “Blessed and Highly Favored” by the Clark Sisters was playing on the radio while I looked in my rearview mirror to check on my daughter as sunlight poured into our SUV. I was humming the tune in my mind, smiling, waiting for my chance to turn.

He brought me through hard trials

He brought me through tribulation

Never let a day go by and not realize

Had not been for the Lord who was on my side

Back was against the wall

He looked out for me

He heard my cry and rescued me

Never let a day go by and not realize

We are blessed and highly favored

It felt like the light knew it was time to turn green because it did right at the moment the chorus ended. I put my foot on the gas to turn. I shifted the wheel to the left. As I did, I noticed the tanker next to me looked a little too close to my vehicle. I ignored my gut feeling to stop turning and committed to the turn I already began making because in my mind the person driving the truck knew how to turn without hitting my vehicle. The next thing that happened makes me question the power of our minds and how reliable memory is.

I felt our vehicles collide. I honestly do not know if I collided my vehicle into the truck or if I saw the tanker collide into me while he made a sharp left turn. What I do remember is the yelling. And the driver getting out. And him charging in my direction. I remember looking at my daughter to see if she was okay. She was watching her iPad and humming a song. I remember gripping my steering wheel tighter. I remember thinking, Is he going to hurt me? I remember grabbing my phone and taking two pictures of his license plate. I also know when he started charging towards me, and when I decided to get out of my vehicle, his tanker truck was parked in front of me in the lane I was turning into, instead of in the lane he should have been turning into.

I get out of the car and calmly tell him, “It was an accident. I didn’t see you.”

He stops charging at me. He stands in place and looks at me for five seconds. He looks at the back of his truck and sees no damage. He then looks at the front of my car. He points to it.

I look in the direction he’s pointing and see that the front passenger side is damaged and I grab my head with both hands. We just bought this car! My insurance is about to go UPPPPPPPP, I think to myself.

Really. We just bought it. Two weeks ago. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

He sees my reaction and he’s quiet for another beat. Then he says, “Do you want to move our vehicles out of the intersection to the side?”

I tell him yes, not wanting to block traffic. I then get back into my SUV and wait for him to lead the way. He starts driving in the direction opposite from my daughter’s school. I find myself thinking, “Great. She’s going to be so late today.”

We pull over and the driver walks up to me. I get out of my vehicle and ask him, “Should we call the police?”

He doesn’t respond. Instead he talks into his phone and says, “She wants to call the police.”

I ask him the same question again and tell him, “I haven’t been in a car accident in a while. I’m not sure of the protocol. Should we call the police?”

He doesn’t respond, and repeats to who ever he’s talking to that I haven’t been in a car accident in a while and I want to call the police.

I call my husband because I’m not sure what to do. He asks, “Are you injured?”

“I’m fine. The car is not fine. But I am fine.”

“Is Nina injured?”

“She’s fine. We’re fine. The car? Not so much. I’m really sorry baby.”

“It’s okay.”

“Should I call the police?” I ask him.

“No, you don’t have to, but get his insurance information.”

I go back to the guy and tell him I won’t be calling the police. He tells that to the person he’s on the phone with. He then tells me, “We don’t need to exchange information. You’re at fault. Because you’re at fault you need to call your insurance company and report this to get your car fixed.”

I stand there processing what he’s saying and think to myself, I’m at fault? I hit him? I think these things because I couldn’t remember the moment of impact clearly.

I break the trance and tell him, “Okay. You sure we don’t need to exchange info? That’s it?”

He said, “Yep, that’s it,” then goes to my car and starts taking a lot of pictures. So I started taking more pictures of his vehicle.

He then waves goodbye and gets back in his truck. I wave back and get in mine. I sit at the driver seat in silence in disbelief about what happened. I think about things I ought not like the fact that I’m not working right now, that my insurance is about to go up, how will we pay for the damage, I can’t believe I hit the truck.

As I’m lost in thought I look up and see the tanker truck driver walking back towards me. He waves to get my attention. I get out of my vehicle.

“I just want to apologize for my road rage earlier. People be doing crazy things on the road. I made a sharp left turn. I normally turn wider but with all the construction going on it’s hard to do that. Normally people wait for me to make my turn and then they take theirs. Anyways, I just wanted to apologize.”

I smile at him and say, “Thank you.” He then gets in his truck and drives off, and I drive in silence in the opposite direction to take my daughter to school.

Believe it or not this blog entry is not about this morning’s car accident.

It is a post about how easy it is to convince ourselves something is true even when there’s no evidence to support the false narrative that has been created.

The more I replayed what happened this morning in my mind I was like, Wow, I really let him convince me I was at fault for the accident so I didn’t follow my gut and file a police report or get his license and insurance.

You or other people can convince you that something is true and you can reconstruct your memories to support that “truth.”

Last weekend I heard a speaker say something powerful during her lecture. She said:

This quote was powerful for me because it made me realize in my past I allowed fear of failure to stop me from taking risks to try things I really wanted. In my mind I convinced myself that failing is a really scary thing that could lead to embarrassment, disappointment, grief, depression, etc.

Failure very well could lead to those things. However, I now see that never trying is scarier than failure could ever be. Staying in the land of familiarity when it is no longer fostering growth is a slow and sure way to become someone bitter. You become a version of yourself you no longer recognize.

Our minds are powerful. With our minds we can convince ourselves that we are the best at what we do, we belong, and we deserve to be in the spaces we float through daily. We can also convince ourselves of the opposite. We are the worst, we don’t fit in, we don’t deserve anything that comes our way.

In my next few posts, I’d like to discuss things I’ve tried in my year off from work. I’ve failed a lot more than I’ve succeeded during this exploration phase but trying has proved to be a lot more rewarding than sitting around wondering what if. Regret has definitely become more of a mountain to eliminate than failing.

Until next time,

Jeanine