It can happen to you…

Driving for any adult has become such a subconscious thing, it is easy to forget that we are driving a car that weighs tons and moving at speeds that are really un-comprehendible if we think about it; after sixteen it can be such an annoying thing to do, let’s be honest. Driving from work after a long day or driving somewhere where you did not even want to go, or putting your life in accidental danger because someone wanted to check their Instagram or send a text that could have easily waited. To wrap this whole thing up, basically driving just does not feel the same as it did when we were sixteen and first got our licensee.

Life can change in an instant; we see things every day that most people would look at and tell themselves “That would never happen to me.” The truth is, they can, and they will if you do not take those things seriously. Most days we wake up and tell ourselves we are going to have another routine day where we are going to do the same thing and see the same people, until that one moment where it is not the same.

A normal weekend turned into a life changing day for a friend of mine, imagine going through your normal routines, waking up and brushing your teeth and making breakfast, checking your social media, and texting your friends about plans for the weekend; not knowing that later that day that nothing would ever be the same. We made plans for the weekend to go see a friend, Taylor, for her birthday in the next city over, about forty-five minutes away. Taylor got a section at a bar in a part of Cleveland that a lot of 20 somethings frequent.

Everything went as routine as possible; we all got to one house and took an uber to Cleveland. The night was going great, we got to see our friends, we had some drinks and partied how any adult would. It felt like this was going to be another regular fun night, until we left the bar. We took an uber back to our friends’ house and all went to go home from there, we all sent our get home safe texts and left with our rides to each of our own houses. The friend I was at the bar with lives near me and I have his location. After a friend brought me to their house, I realized that he did not text me he was home, I checked his location and seen that he was on the highway, at first, I thought nothing of it and that he was just moving along the highway. A few minutes later I got an unusual feeling in my stomach, and I decided to call; he did not answer. I called again, and again, and again. No answer. At that point I was starting to get worried, so I called a friend that was closer and able to go check on them. My intuition has always been good, and I knew that once I seen him stuck on the highway it was only a matter of time before I found out how bad it was. My friend called me and said something that still until this day takes me a while to process, he told me that the police were there, and he crashed his car into a ditch; police said that he veered off the road and ended up in the ditch, luckily, he was alive, his jaw was broken, and the car was totaled but he would be okay.

Words cannot describe how emotional I was about the situation because I have known him since we were in the seventh grade; I wouldn’t be able to fathom if I lost him and it put a whole new perspective on my life about how it can truly change in the blink of an eye. In movies it seems so surreal, and we know its fake but when it happens to you, you begin to not only question things about what happened but every bad thing that has happened in life. I went to see him in the hospital, and I could not believe I was walking in there to see someone who was in perfect health not even twenty-four hours earlier. I have gained a whole new appreciation for not only my life but my friends life and what they bring to me and the world.