You Scared My Body!

I love that picture. I've gotten it in a couple of e-mails, and it makes me laugh so hard, because that is exactly how I feel when I'm riding a roller-coaster. I am such a chicken! I swear, one of these days, on a roller-coaster ride, I'm just going to faint dead away.

Anywho, Dylan and I got into our car accident, like, six weeks ago, but I forgot to write about Dylan's reaction to it and the aftermath. After we hit the guy (remember, it wasn't my fault! My brakes went out on me at a busy intersection!) and spun around a few times and came to a stop, Dylan just started yelling at me: "Why did you just hit him? Don't you know how to drive?!?" He was just ticked. Later, when we were on the sidewalk and the police were interviewing everyone, Dylan started crying. I was hugging him and telling him how sorry I was, and he muttered, "Mom, you scared my body." That is such an apt way of describing it! I, myself, was still shaking.

Ever since then, Dylan has been dealing with, like, PTSD. Anytime we go anywhere in the car, Dylan is constantly reminding me to brake, to slow down, that yellow means slow down, that red means stop, etc. etc. etc. If I get into the left turn lane, he's like, "Why are you SWERVING??? Are we going to hit someone again?" I keep reassuring him that, yes, I do know how to drive, and that the accident we got into was not my fault, but he still is a total backseat driver now. But his fear makes sense. It takes me months, emotionally, to get over accidents. Once, I got rear-ended, and for like a year, I was always watching my rear-view mirror when I was at stop lights. I was convinced I would get rear-ended again. And sometimes, if a car looked like it was coming too quickly, I would start gasping, and my heart would start pounding, and I would kind of brace myself for the inevitable rear-end. So Dylan's manicness makes sense. Poor kid.