Life Is Made Up Of Split Seconds

So many things can happen in a split second. You can first make eye contact with the person you'll spend the rest of your life with, you can walk in on your boyfriend doing the funky monkey with your best friend, you can make the decision to spend money you don't have on a dress. You can die.

On Monday, I was happily (and somewhat sleepily) driving home on the LDP heading back to Subang from 1Utama. The radio was turned up loud, and I was listening to mushy romantic songs on Red FM's Late Night Love Songs (suited my mood, see). I was a bit sleepy, so I wasn't going at my usual 110-120, but anyway the traffic was backing up somewhat so I was forced to drop to about 90-odd km/h which is a pretty reasonable speed to be traveling at, right? In a split second, everything changed. I barely had enough time to register that the car in front of me had screeched to an almost-complete halt before I plowed right into his rear. Right now, as I type this, I can almost literally see the glare of his red brake lights rushing up towards me as I jammed my foot - uselessly - on brakes that slowed me down enough to save my life but not to save my car. The sound of screeching tires and that final, sickening bang as my baby made brutal contact with the huge solid Exora in front of me is something that haunts me at random intervals. On the road, obviously. But also while in the bathroom, while working, while sitting, while eating.

The Exora and I got off the highway ASAP and headed to a Caltex off the highway (in hindsight, I'm lucky he didn't turn out to be a rapist or something, don't they always warn not to go off to 'settle' stuff, in case the other party turns out to be a robber?). I'm not proud to say that in my shock and shaken state, I literally hopped out of the car the minute I stopped at Caltex and started shouting at the man in Cantonese. I can barely speak Cantonese at the best of times, but on Monday night, I had sudden fluency. In the back of my mind, I was totally admiring my own suddenly-perfect accent and silently begging myself not to screw it up cos then I'd look a right idiot, wouldn't I? Anyway, he was quite nice about it since his car was relatively unhurt (scratches and a malfunctioning decorative light, I shit you not. Who says Proton sucks? Buy Exora), and his wife was really nice too, which made me feel like a total bitch =( I hope being very very calm and somewhat civil (I tried my best ok!!) after that made amends somewhat. Hi Mr. Driver! If you're reading this, and I'm pretty sure you're not, lol.. I'm sorry =(( You're not a crazy driver and it's not your fault. Cool leg tats, btw.


Unca Phyo came to make sure I didn't get kidnapped by unfriendly foreigners (as opposed to him, the FRIENDLY foreigner lulz), and my parents arrived pretty soon after I called. As per usual, my parents' individual methods of dealing with shit vary greatly: My dad's first reaction - after giving me a look-over to make sure I wasn't hurt in any way - was to get on all fours and peer under the car to see if it was leaking water. My mother - who went 'WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT???' in a very Exorcist-like tone when I called home and told my brother to get my mom quick cos I'd been in a car crash - started up with "I TOLD YOU YOU DRIVE RECKLESSLY!" and stayed on that theme for the rest of the night. Obviously, they were worried shitless, which is prolly why they didn't really yell at me much... even during the car-ride to the police station or on the way back home. I felt so numb that everything either completely passed over my head or struck me as hilarious, much to my parents' annoyance. Honestly, the only time my dad yelled at me that night was to tell me to shut up cos I was laughing like a retard in the police station. Which, you know, is no place to be acting like you're high on weed.

Post-accident, everything in life seems more intense and important. After all, according to my dad, if I had been going about 20km/h faster (and I would've been if I had been driving at my usual speed), I'd probably be dead or seriously concussed because my car has no airbags. Everything now has a sense of "OMG if I had died on Monday night I wouldn't be experiencing this right now". Wake-up call? Yes. Death has always been quite an abstract idea: you know, the inevitable thing that surely wouldn't happen anytime soon... after all, I'm only 23... shouldn't I be thinking about life and not death, etc. But honestly, thinking about death has, if anything, made me appreciate life so much more. I know this is a pretty typical reaction, but I'm kind of hoping that I'll be able to hang onto this newfound appreciation for everything for a long time yet.

Mommy's so sorry, baby T__T I'll tell the doctors to make you all better, and soon. Be good while you're at the hospital. <3