Sometimes it's hard to be thankful....

When bad things happen, it's hard to find the bright side.  In the grand scheme of things, a car accident is not a hugely horrible thing, especially when no one gets hurt.

Traveling down Route 93 yesterday, in the middle of the day in dry conditions, I spun out, fishtailed back and forth across all three lanes and hit the guardrail - facing in the opposite direction.

Terrifying? Yes.   But lucky in so many ways.  Most importantly, no other car was involved in the accident.  The guy in front of me who slammed on his brakes, and for whom I swerved to avoid, continued on his way...probably unaware that he was the reason I was careening across the highway.

Fishtailing across three lanes of traffic, it's unbelievable that no one hit me.  How they all avoided me, I'll never know.

Hitting the guardrail, I managed to smash in both the front and back of the passenger side.  I was wearing a seatbelt, and I was not hurt.  I landed completely out of the lane of traffic, which was another miracle.  I was facing traffic, so anyone unable to stop would have hit me head-on if I'd been a couple feet further onto the highway.

Two cars stopped...both with young people who were anxious to know if I was okay, if I had a cellphone, if I needed any help.   Everyone else just rubbernecked, causing one of those back-ups you hear about on the radio in the morning on your way to work.

When the State Troopers came, I told them I thought the car was drive-able.   They told me if I thought I could drive it away, they'd help me turn it around.  They stopped traffic completely, I turned the car around and was able to drive it home.

It takes some time to get over the shock and the sadness that follows when something like this happens.  I know I need to be thankful for the fact that I wasn't hurt and neither was anyone else.  Right now I'm still sad, and starting to be angry about all the chaos this will create in our life - the insurance, the repairs  - or even worse - looking for a new car.