Item: 1 District of Columbia license plate
When August 16 rolled around a few weeks ago, I had the distinct impression all day that this date was significant, but had no idea why. It wasn't anyone's birthday (well, I'm sure it's someone's, but not anyone who came to mind), or a deadline for anything.
I couldn't think what it was until I realized that it was the date in 2002 when I was in a traffic accident. August 16 is grooved into my brain because I spent probably the next 6 months repeating this date in phone conversations with insurers and police and attorneys and so forth. That's why it seemed so familiar.
They say almost everyone has a story about something that logically they shouldn't have survived, and this is mine. The collision itself was an almost lyrical experience of violent choreography, compared to the mean, ugly, soul-crushing process to follow, called working with the System. I was angry and frustrated to an unfamiliar degree almost constantly during that time, and would have cheerfully walked away from it at any point rather than grind on through, but I guess I was just too stubborn. I would have been happy with an apology, even, but the attitude on the other end seemed to be that I had it coming. My car wasn't worth much, I heard over and over. Plus, I wasn't seriously hurt, and this seemed equally offensive to them.
My car was crushed. The guy had a blood-alcohol level way over the limit. His car wasn't even his. He also had a record. He fled the country and who knows what he did after that. My car was declared a total loss and left in a lot in Delaware. I wrote to the lot and asked if they could send me the license plate. They did.
I eventually got a small settlement for my trouble. I came out of it feeling like I lost, not because of any financial balance sheet but entirely because of the way I was treated. They had made me into a Victim, and that made me as angry as anything else.
It was probably more than a year later, after I moved to California, that I felt free of it. I was walking by the ocean one day when these phrases came back to me almost like delayed punch lines. My car wasn't worth much. I didn't get hurt. I didn't get hurt.
It took that amount of time for my defense mechanisms to unkink enough for it to sink in that I didn't die. It seemed like the salt water had just penetrated enough to wake all of my senses up again. Thus this license plate, unlike my others, has only incidental associations with the place it came from. It has strong associations with the waves roaring and my being there to hear them.
I couldn't think what it was until I realized that it was the date in 2002 when I was in a traffic accident. August 16 is grooved into my brain because I spent probably the next 6 months repeating this date in phone conversations with insurers and police and attorneys and so forth. That's why it seemed so familiar.
They say almost everyone has a story about something that logically they shouldn't have survived, and this is mine. The collision itself was an almost lyrical experience of violent choreography, compared to the mean, ugly, soul-crushing process to follow, called working with the System. I was angry and frustrated to an unfamiliar degree almost constantly during that time, and would have cheerfully walked away from it at any point rather than grind on through, but I guess I was just too stubborn. I would have been happy with an apology, even, but the attitude on the other end seemed to be that I had it coming. My car wasn't worth much, I heard over and over. Plus, I wasn't seriously hurt, and this seemed equally offensive to them.
My car was crushed. The guy had a blood-alcohol level way over the limit. His car wasn't even his. He also had a record. He fled the country and who knows what he did after that. My car was declared a total loss and left in a lot in Delaware. I wrote to the lot and asked if they could send me the license plate. They did.
I eventually got a small settlement for my trouble. I came out of it feeling like I lost, not because of any financial balance sheet but entirely because of the way I was treated. They had made me into a Victim, and that made me as angry as anything else.
It was probably more than a year later, after I moved to California, that I felt free of it. I was walking by the ocean one day when these phrases came back to me almost like delayed punch lines. My car wasn't worth much. I didn't get hurt. I didn't get hurt.
It took that amount of time for my defense mechanisms to unkink enough for it to sink in that I didn't die. It seemed like the salt water had just penetrated enough to wake all of my senses up again. Thus this license plate, unlike my others, has only incidental associations with the place it came from. It has strong associations with the waves roaring and my being there to hear them.
posted by Karen at 6:24 PM
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