I’ve Been Avoiding Deep Questions With Productivity Classes. Yesterday It Made Me Crash My Car.

Photo by Daniel on Unsplash

I never saw the red light.

I realized I should have stopped just as I drove into the intersection, seeing the other car coming from the right. What is she doing? was my first thought. Then I noticed all the cars facing me, neatly waiting behind the stop line.

Oh. It’s not her. It’s me.

I hit the brakes, braced myself, and felt my Prius slow. I thought it might stop before it hit the other car, but no. Even at walking speed the crunch was solid, jarring. I looked at the woman in the other car and mouthed Are you ok? She was wide-eyed, but nodded (spoiler: nobody was injured).

My head sank as the adrenaline crashed along with the weariness of the day so far combined, the day that I’d planned, and now all the extra — tow trucks, insurance, police reports, citations, rates going up.

It could have been a lot worse. But this was not how I’d hoped to spend my lunch hour.

It’s my therapists fault: she told me I needed to spend more time thinking.

I wish this was as simple as a cautionary tale of not driving while eating, or texting, or fiddling with the radio. I wasn’t doing any of those…