I didn’t get much sleep on Saturday night as I had litany of ‘What if’s’ running on a loop through my brain. So every time I closed my eyes I ran through another what if scenario. Not the most fun I’ve had lately.
It was all due to an experience I had on Saturday afternoon. I was driving out to visit my son and the highway was reasonably busy with traffic going both ways. As I began to slow down for my turn-off a few hundred metres ahead I put my indicators on then saw a flash of silver near my front tyre and then an almighty bang as the oncoming car took out my side mirror.
Amazingly I managed to keep on my path, slow down and turn off the road where I’d planned. I think I might have uttered an expletive at the time. But as I turned off the highway I apologised to my (very religious) passenger and swore soundly several times and then pulled up on the side of the road to inspect the damage. The car that had been travelling behind followed and pulled up behind me. The driver came up to my side window and asked if I was all right. He said they’d seen the silver car veer across the road into my lane and the debris flying as the car hit me and was amazed that a catastrophe had been avoided — there was a lot of traffic on that road.
How often do we live our lives looking back and wondering if something else had happened yada yada yada.
Looking back to reminisce occasionally is fine, but constantly looking back and wondering is futile. It gets you absolutely nowhere. Theres the old proverb that says something about when one door closes we are often so busy looking at it that we miss the next door opening — the next opportunity.
So I’m endeavouring to look forward — onwards and upwards from now on because I see that I’ve wasted a lot of my time dwelling on the ‘What if’s..’
And perhaps the driver of the car that hit me has had a huge wake-up call to pay attention when your’e driving on a busy highway at one hundred kilometres an hour — life can change in an instant. Oh, and there are some really good people around — like the man who stopped to see if was okay when I was doing my jelly impression.
Anyway as I said to a friend “Only the good die young” and obviously my time is not yet up.