The Horrible and Ungodly Petrol Accident of ’94

We learn every time we come close to fucking at all up. We definitely learn every time we completely fuck it all up, that much is certain, but I think people underestimate how much we learn from the close calls, the “holy moly, that was close” episodes. Every time we almost fuck up, an angel gets his wings.

I learned from an early age to not go anywhere close to the steering wheel of a car, and this included my own car. I wasn’t about to touch any steering wheel of any kind after “the Horrible and Ungodly Petrol Accident of ’94″ happened. That kind of thing will scar you for life, I don’t care who you are. 

It has taken me a while to get comfortable being anywhere near a car, let alone riding in one as a passenger. It took months to work my way up, “leveling up” as it were. Moving to the place where I could stand next to a car without screaming, working my way up to the point where I could touch the outside of a car, and then, to the point where I could touch the inside of a car, and then to the point where I could sit in the backseat without squirming and screaming “Bloody murder, Sweet Jehoshaphat”, and then working my way up to the point where I was sitting in the backseat, sitting in the backseat and not trying to strangle anyone (and this included myself) out of sheer desperation and unbridled anxiety, and then working my way up to the point where I could actually sit in the passenger seat up front, near the driver’s seat, and do all of this without instinctively wanting to reach over and grab the steering wheel and pull everyone off the road and into a ditch in a fit of manic overwhelm. As one can imagine, this took weeks and weeks and months and months to achieve, going point by point and rung by rung, so that all told it took about three years, and this was with keen and expert supervision and unrelenting support from friends and family (and might I add, a fierce determination from within my gut as well).

It took five months for me to attempt driving my car, and this was after however long it took to actually get behind the wheel of my own car and get to the place where I could sit peaceably there without wanting to punch the drivers window repeatedly, or bite my own arm off. But when I turned the key to the ignition that one fateful day in August when I was finally feeling ready to do so, sharp visions of “the Horrible and Ungodly Petrol Accident of ’94” came flooding back. The smells and visceral feelings of the accident came flooding back, too. I didn’t know what to do with all of that, and so I clearly panicked and took the key out of the ignition, took the car key off the ring, placed the key on my tongue, and swallowed it down whole. Thank God the key went down my throat vertically instead of horizontally. I didn’t even stop to think how painful it would be to pass the key after digestion, (or whether or not it would pass at all, God help me). All I could think about was the Accident of ’94 and how badly I wished to not start the car. Thank God I didn’t actually start the car, or who knows what would’ve happened. If I had started the car, the odds of me being thrown in jail on a minimum sentence were great. That was my view, in any case.

And it’s not as if I hadn’t tried again to actually drive the car. I tried at least two more times after receiving replacement keys (I did eventually pass the car key, but it was extraordinarily painful with all those jagged edges at the end). The second time I turned on the ignition I freaked out as much as I had the first time, but in my mania and high anxiety I had the wherewithal to remember that swallowing the car key was not a good idea, and instead I opened the car door and threw the keys onto the pavement, proceeding to slam the car door shut and hyperventilate for the next nine minutes. The third time I shoved the car key into my right trouser pocket and proceeded to sing “Hey Ya” by OutKast at the top of my lungs five times straight before eventually calming down enough to face disappointment and safely exit the vehicle.

My friends and close family all thought I could do it. I thought I could do it, too. But sometimes, knowing when to walk away and accept a loss is one of the greatest victories there is. We learn every time we come close to fucking it all up.