Tired

                                                              TIRED



Many of you probably have heard of my misfortunes from somebody else other then myself.  Slowly trickling through the grapevine of our tight knit community.  A community I love, participate in, am proud to bring my children up in.   But recently I heard an amazing misconception, that  made my heart sink.  It reminded me of the game we used to play as kids called "Telephone", where one person starts out with a sentence or a phrase and passes it around a circle of "friends"  and the last person repeats what they had thought they heard.   It always amazes me the outcome of the final phrase.  It is nothing like the real story.  Normally, one would then ask the person who thought of the phrase, what the original phrase was...to everyone's surprise it was nothing like the end result.

This is my story, there should be no variations, sorry if it is not exciting enough for a few of those thrill seekers, or that someone else was not getting the attention they wanted, or that if perhaps my story was being told while I wasn't there to answer the questions, the facts could not be spoken.  I am here to set the record straight.

I was driving home around 11:00 from a most amazing and beautiful wedding my family and I had the pleasure of witnessing.  I was on the Huntington/Richmond road, just short of the Audubon Sugar shack.  I was rounding a curve in the road, and wanted to hear the song "Hallelujah", on my Pandora station, because the night was amazing, and I had just witnessed my friends getting married and my children grow into adults.  I love that song, as my kids will attest to.  Asking Sydney if Berkeley had fallen asleep, and getting the response, " I don't know, I can't see her", provoked my body's response to turn and see if I could visualize her asleep, slumped in her seat...exhausted from a day of excitement.   That was the last thing I remember.  Because as I turned around, my car was on the edge of the curve, clutched in the gravels pull and aiming me into a telephone pole.  CRASH, smoke, and a warm feeling of liquid down my face.  We stopped moving.  The car filled with smoke and soon someone was yelling through the window, get out, get out of the car.  My kids were crying, and " Mom, can we get out of the car?"  I focused, my head feeling like someone took a bat to it, " Yes, yes, get out of the car.  Get out of the road."  Disoriented I guess, we were not in the road, but in a ditch.  My kids and I were moved to the other side of the road, a driveway, of which I had known for quite sometime.  For Sydney used to go to Daycare there when she was 5 weeks old.   The rest happened quickly.  My friends came back to comfort me, they were driving up ahead and saw the burst of light from the explosion.  They hugged me and my children, and asked me to call Dick.  I did not recall his telephone number and stared blankly at my phone, not realizing that if I just pushed contacts his cell phone number would appear.  Shock.  My children kept repeating " Mom, mom are you okay?"  And I would say " Yes sweeties, mommy is fine, are you okay?"   We clung together not wanting to let go.  My friends, put my children in their car, they were shivering. Shock.  A State trooper showed up, and then  two Richmond cops and an Ambulance.  I did not send my children home with my friends before the cops showed up, I did not make an excuse to where I was, or that I was not drinking or that I was not using my cell phone.  We received a thorough exam from Richmond Rescue, whom I might add are amazing people. My husband showed up, driving from the same wedding I had just come from, speechless.  Shock.  The policeman wanted to talk to me.  Alone.  So after getting the okay to have my kids released from the ambulance, I sent them with my friends and my husband to get some kind of relief and because I knew I was going to be awhile.
          That is the story.  I was given a breath test, which I agreed too, and found myself over the legal limit.  Shocked.  I was processed, and here I am today, dealing with the consequences.  The stories I have heard surface from the original amaze me.  It spreads like a disease.  It frightens me, the ability to mold a story to ones liking.  This is my story, my life, and I know how it went, and how it ends.  You all should know by now, that I tell it like it is....call it ballsy, brave, honest....I call it real.  It never crossed my mind to embellish, lie, or hide what went on.
           Our society, tends to forget the beginning of the telephone conversation.  It is not news worthy, it won't get you as many friends, it does not pay the bills.  I am tired, tired of the misconceptions, tired of the falsities, tired of the hiding.  If I can get one person to stop living in a fantasy land life, through this blog, it is worth my daily reminder.  We are so slammed with politicians, government and communities, lying with each other about the real story that is beneath. It is easier to create illusions, misinformation, or hide behind a different mask, but it also kills who you are inside.   I am tired, but I am alive and even though the road gets tough at times, I like who I am, and who I will become through this and many other journeys life is going to throw me.
                                                   

Daily Dose of Death:

It is hard waking up, knowing that you have to face death.  It is even harder when you see death, and it is the worst when you know you were so close to death.


It has  been week two, and three and going on four, I have biked to work and home 4 out of 5 days to my work.  I love to bike, and it frees my mind, it is a time to organize and let go, but at the same time it is a fight to stay alive....not the fight our military has to face, not the fight our children have to go through each and every day through their daily upbringings, trying to figure out who they really are, but a true fight, for life.

I ride in rain, sleet, gorgeous blue bird days, I like to ride...what I hate is the anxiety of never letting my eyes off the road.  To some that may be easy, to others like myself who suffer from ADHD, it is a challenge.  I rode my bike in 30 degree temps for about a week or two, my hands were cold, fingers numb, my face had no expression except concentration.  What was I concentrating on...life.   The ability to survive the 12 .3 miles it takes me to ride to or from work safely.   I asked my husband what I should be weary of, on a day it was 30 degrees and pouring rain....he said don't ride on the painted lines.  Painted lines.  They may look big to those who drive along side them in a car, in fact you may curse a many cyclist for being too close to the  lines they are driving near, but let me tell you about the painted lines.  For one:  painted lines are made for the gas guzzling vehicle, two: if you are not a gas guzzling vehicle you loose, three: stay away from the painted lines.   This may sound confusing to you, but let me explain....We as bikers, cyclists if you will, are not meant to go beyond the painted line, it is our safety zone, where we feel secure, oblivious to the surroundings around us....this is bullshit.

What you don't see between the slim line protecting vehicle drivers from driving off the edge of the road or warning drivers that there is no shoulder, is the biking lane.  It is small at times the size of a mountain bike tire, at random occasions it is wide and wonderful.   Those wonderful times exist few and far between.  There are dead animals, metal, broken glass, gravel, trash, a random bottle or two...it is a nightmare.   I have to say, that the joy of biking turns into an adventure course where ninja warriors abound....This is my daily dose of death.  I swerve, curve, bobble, and bound, I jump, sway, maneuver and pray, that I will not find that metal object you threw out of your car, or the nail that happened to appear.   The cracks alone give me anxiety....if I get my tire in between the crevices, they pop...oh so not cool. The lines are slick, like ice on a rainy day, they toss you to the side if you turn on them at the wrong time.  They are the enemy.
        I now know the favorite drinks of people by the trash they throw outside, Franzia wine, Yoohoo, Amp drinks, Cavit wine....these are the things I view daily,  10 boxes of Franzia alone on Barber farm road...and when did chocolate milk become a forbidden drink so that we need to discard the debry....I hate that I cannot take my eyes off the road to view the soaring hawk, 10 feet away, or the fact that I cannot pull my sleeve down because my arm is frozen and I have 10 more miles to go....if I bobble, sway or swerve, I am dead, or seriously injured.  It is hard to face everyday.  Yet it is a fact that I did not take into account when I drove my vehicle that night.  One swerve, one twist, one mistake and I and my children would be dead.   It is something I have to wake up to everyday.  It is something you should wake up to everyday.  

I was suppose to get my license back this week, but the system tells me different.  Instead of a month of suspension, I will have nearly 2 months suspension...because you need to complete a crash course before you get your license back. a crash course that is full and overflowing. and takes you two weeks to get into...costing my family nearly 3,000 $ financially, anxiety between children's routines and  normality, and being a burden on society.  I will dance with my daily dose of death...for another 16 days......it hurts, sucks and pretty much makes me nauseous everyday...but it is what needs to be done to figure out how lucky I am.

I am here, and want to make sure that you are here....think before you drive that car, think before you play with the music on  your cell phone, think before you turn your head to look at your child asleep in the backseat ..for you are playing with Death. One second and it is over.

I am thankful for the reminders, even though they are painful, they make me face what I took for granted, or did not want to visualize.  I awake to a daily dose of death, And now  I go out and make sure it does not happen again.

Thank you again to all the families that have given my children a sense of normalcy.  To my husband who gives me strength   and most of all to my children for their ability to love through thick or thin....It is with all of this combined strength that I can wake up and ride on.