TheFranciscos.Net

Besides being tired all the time due to all the stress from work, I’ve just also been uninspired to write anything for the past few days. It’s my birthday today though, and I thought, what better way to spend your birthday than to just spend a nice relaxing day at home (especially after the past two months at work of working late and working weekends). So here I am, taking today and tomorrow off doing absolutely NOTHING. I don’t know about you, but that sounds really great to me.

Birthdays traditionally mean a new lease on life, and recalling that when you came into this world, you started with a clean slate. That couldn’t be more emphasized to me today after an accident that I had last Monday with my car. I was driving along the PA turnpike, when a sudden onrush of snow appeared seemingly out of nowhere. It was just my luck that this happened just while I was negotiating a curve, and before I knew it my car was slipping and sliding out of control. After trying to regain control for a few seconds, I knew that it was inevitable that I was going to crash. I was just hoping that nobody else would crash into me. Before I knew it, my car decided to do a counter-clockwise turn into the median wall and ended up perpendicular to the traffic on the highway. Thank God that the other cars behind me slowed down and avoided bumping into me. My car is a total wreck (or so the insurance company claims), but I luckily walked away unscathed.

I don’t remember much from what happened since it all seemed to happen so quickly, but I do know that in those split-seconds when I realized I was going to have a bad accident, I recall thinking about Aileen and Zoe, and basically hoping that I’d live through this so I can talk to them about it. Of course, this was right before the moment that I hit the wall and whispered my last words before actually ramming into it. If I remember correctly, my last words were “Oh, f**k!”.

Needless to say, I consider myself very lucky to walk away from that. Considering it was the PA turnpike, it could have ended a lot worse. I’m very grateful that I got to spend another birthday with my family. I think that this new lease on life is the best birthday gift that I can receive (although Aileen’s gift of a set of Bone books are pretty cool too).

Thank God for the simple things in life – they really are what makes life worth living.