I'm fine, just a few cuts and scratches. My left thigh is pretty sore but I told the paramedics I felt no pain since I didn't want them looking at my left thigh. He saw enough when he asked me to roll up my sleeve to take my blood pressure. I saw him pause when he saw my arm, but he was professional about it and didn't say anything about it once he discerned it wasn't related to the accident. An even bigger irony is the UPS workers asking if I was OK.
The last time I went down was almost exactly a year ago. That was my fault, slipping on wet Muni tracks, and it was potentially far worse because I hit my head. This time, I went limp, rolled, and protected my head. I remember everything.
Last year's crash, I remember feeling my back wheel slip, I remember the sharp impact of the back of my head hitting the ground, and then the next thing I remember was struggling to push myself off the ground, facing down, and hearing voices.
Which probably means I blacked out and rolled. Which would also explain the PG&E guy who saw me go down saying that I went down pretty hard, because at that time I didn't feel like I went down hard. But from the point of impact to hearing people running to me to see if I was OK, I estimate I was out for 30 seconds to maybe a minute. Not long.
It's December. The darkness and the season has been getting to me. My job has been getting to me, my social life has been getting to me. And this doesn't help.
Why is it that I feel this . . . this, I don't know . . . anger? This does not matter. Physically, I'm fine. A few cuts, scratches and bruises, I've done worse to myself. Even if I got nothing in return for my damaged bike, I'd be fine – new cranks, new rims maybe, at most. The rims just might need to be trued. It was a broadside, and there was no structural impact to the frame.
But still this feeling. Why? I don't feel violated, I don't feel assaulted, I don't feel wronged. On a purely karmic level, I should just let this go. On a social level, the driver should feel some sting because he was negligent and dangerous, and if he feels like he got away with something and continues to drive negligently, that's my bad. Socially.
But no, that's not it. So I got hit, nothing about it really matters, but I still have this feeling and it's not directed at the driver, it's not directed at me, it just exists, and the closest thing I can identify to it is anger. What the hell am I angry about?
Anger is the emotion I feel most comfortable with. I don't express it, I don't show it, I just have it and hold it.
Growing up, I never got depressed. The feeling that other people may have had which could be identified as depression, I may have had, but I always channeled it into something else. Mostly anger, mostly anger towards my parents, but I never got depressed.
I never felt depressed until I was committed, and that's when I learned depression, because I would have that feeling, but locked up I wasn't able to channel or direct it into anger.
And then came the unilateral reconciliation with my parents, and I stopped directing anger towards them. I don't hate them anymore, I'm not angry at them anymore.
There is no object of my anger. In fact, the feeling may be nothing that anyone else would put in their hands, turn around and examine and call anger. It's just this thing, a resonant vibration that I have in me. It used to be hate, it used to be anger, it used to be harm.
But if you hate, you have to hate something, and I don't. If you're angry, you have to be angry at something, and I'm not. And to harm, you need to have intent, and I don't.
But it's still part of the basic energy of my being. When I ride, I ride hard, and the source is that energy, that vibration. Same when I run, same when I play guitar, same when I play bass, and definitely the same when I played drums because, well, OK, you'd have to see the pictures, but I look pretty darned mad at something. But that's why I consider running and riding a form of expression, not just an activity. It's also probably why I prefer to do them solo.
And this is probably why I need to be torn down, to have my self-control stripped away, to be exposed and forced to confront depression, hate, and anger, or otherwise I can continue with my smug satisfaction that I don't need or even want to be here. Personally, I prefer that latter.
