Last week I genuinely got hit by a car. I – and this is not an aside in any way – am actually fine.
I was walking in a crosswalk across an intersection. I had the green – and so did the guy headed towards me turning left across my crosswalk. At least this is what we figured out after the fact. What I remember is being almost halfway across and seeing this car moving towards me and turning to face it (I put my hands out… to stop it??) and then thinking – and I apologize for the language but really thought – “Is THIS really fckng happening?!” And then I landed on the street and lots of very kind people had stopped and already called 911 (apparently my flight was a little dramatic) and this driver and his passenger were out of the car to help me. As it happens I had an earbud in and was talking to my guy on the phone, to whom I apparently said “I just got hit by a car!” Because I am the master of the need-to-know news in a crisis I guess.
Except it wasn’t a crisis. And this is the point of telling you about this. I was bruised and scraped but essentially unharmed. I was an EMT before med school and I have seen much less dramatic events do much damage to human bodies.
For the last few weeks we’ve been thinking together about how we distinguish between bad days and difficult days.
Last Tuesday was not a bad day and I noticed it because it so easily could have been. Maybe, by the laws of physics alone, should have been a bad day for me and the people who love me. Instead it was a little difficult (and so were the next few) but also a GOOD day. Because of how lucky I got, because of what didn’t happen.
I’m filled with counterfactual gratitude – thinking about what could have happened and didn’t – and that was enough to make it a good day. A really really good day. The afterglow of that gratitude has echoed with every twinge I felt since then as my bruises heal and every time I cross a street. Brains being what they are, this won’t last but I’m hoping to carry the echo of it forward. Writing to you about it is part of that effort. Thank you for reading!
Have you ever had this experience?
All my best,
Dr G.
