A bit of ersatz therapy

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

“Witnessed” a death today, just as I was leaving work. Need to process it and this is part of that.

I was sitting there waiting to get out going in the direction of home. Right by the entrance to our lot there is an S curve and nestled in one of the turns is the local sanitation company. Lots of traffic, can’t get out going the way I want to, no problem, I’ll go the other way and just go around the block. Ok looking the other direction to find the break in traffic going the other way. Garbage truck, sedan and pickup, WOOT I’m out. Oh the garbage truck is stopping all of the sudden, why? Did they have some trash that was stuck somewhere somehow that suddenly fell off? Whats all that debris and, a boot? Wait, that looks like … motorcycle parts, both sides of the truck, oh hell the driver’s helper is backing up crossing himself.

Motorcyclist, maybe accelerating, was passing cars in the blind curves of the S turn and went head on into the gargabe truck, just as I was pulling out into traffic two cars back from that truck. The trash truck was certainly going at least 35 mph (the speed limit there) I’m pretty sure, Don’t know how fast the biker was going, probably 35 mph at least, and in my mind, probably faster since he was trying to pass cars.

I usually go visit my parents who live very near to where I work. Today had been a bit of hell with the heat and all, so I was just planning on toughing it out through rush hour so I could get home, take a cool shower and go SPLUH! on my couch.
I’m typing this on my Dad’s computer now. I’ll just take that shower a little later, I just witnessed a statistic happening, I don’t want to risk being another. I’ll leave here after the PBS documentary on small wild felines ends.

2

Not really sure whats going on with me, on this. I don’t “feel” upset. Death and bodies aren’t unfamiliar to me. I feel unsettled, agitated by the incident somehow, all the same. I don’t really fully understand it, why I feel this way. Maybe the thought that if I had decided to go the other route just a few seconds earlier it might have been me having the wreck with the biker? Maybe witnessing (sort of) the actual event, instead of just seeing the results after at some remove, both temporally and emotionally? I don’t know. This is something I’ll likely think about, even if only at a lower level until I come to some sort of resolution on it.
Don’t know when or what that will be.

3

I am sorry that happened and that you witnessed it. I am fairly certain the motorcyclist was a young man, his parents must be grief stricken.

I’ve witnessed things I wish I hadn’t and it always takes time to process. I think you probably aren’t “feeling” because shock works in strange ways. Rest and allow your mind to process.

4

Yes, this. Everyone is different. Don’t worry one way or another if you feel one or another despite what you think you “should feel”.

Just be. It’ll process the way it ends up processing. Not much you can really do about it. It may never hit, you might start crying in 2 minutes or three weeks from now when you are watching a rerun of Chopped and one of the basket ingredients is celery something will hit you really weird and you’ll be pondering the ridiculousness of the universe for the next couple of days.

5

@JaneDoe42 , and @Enjoy_Slurm ,
Thanks for the comments. They help in getting this settled in my mental map of the world.