A Car Crash with Raymond K. Hessel

One of my all time favorite movies and books has to be Fight Club.  It's so quotable, and speaks so many great truths to dudes in my general generation.  It's not really about guys merely beating each other up.  I mean...it is...but it's more.



(Whoopee...I'm manorexic and I fight other guys!)

And an often overlooked scene in that movie is about Raymond K. Hessel.


Raymond K. Hessel doesn't die at the hands of Tyler Durden, therefore his existence and all his tomorrows are all going to be super special.  And that makes sense.  In a Tyler kind of way.


(Raymond promises to quit his shitty job!)
 
He didn't die, so he realizes his life is a gift.  Because Tyler put a gun to his head.
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And then there is the car wreck scene.  "We are having a near life experience!"

Life gives you lots of car wrecks.  There are literal car wrecks.

(About to have a near life experience...you gotta LET GO to have these, I hear)
 
And then there are the metaphorical car wrecks. 
 
Those are the ones that are hard to get over and carry on from.  You know the ones...a bad marriage ending and dying a slow, passionless death. 

(These folks are mid-car wreck...happening right NOW!)  

Going to prison.  Having a death in the family.  Losing a cherished relationship that you thought would be your rock for the rest of your days. 

All car wrecks.

And all, hopefully, things you get to walk away from.

When you survive a "car wreck"...you don't take life for granted as much.  You value the sunshine on your face.  You know that you MIGHT not have been here...if only one other thing had gone differently.
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I have a friend who was in a horrible car wreck.  She e-mailed me images and dozens of pictures of the wreck that happened years ago.  Long before I knew her.  I was horrified.  Mortified.  That anyone lived through such carnage where you couldn't tell there was a car at all left me shaking and cold.  Nothing shocks me.  These pictures of what she lived through shocked me.




(Okay...she's punch me in the mouth if I intimated this was her pink car.  She's not a pink kind of girl)  

She's my living, breathing, miracle...my car wreck friend.  Car wreck friend is alive in all the most grand and awesome ways.  And spastic.  And awesome.  She is the most Raymond K. Hessel person I know.  And I love that about her!

That she lived through such a terror is a miracle and a blessing.  That she is in my life is a blessing.  I believe that.   

She lives every day as if she's having a "Near life experience."  She realizes what she has because she knows she was THIS close to having nothing left.  And God Bless her for her appearance(s) in my life.
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On a daily basis, everyone reading this feels somewhat "normal".  And there's nothing great or off or painful or stellar about it.  Feeling normal is just "normal."  It just is.

You see, I lost a close relationship recently.  And it was wrecking me.  Killing me.  Tearing me apart, if you're Henry Rollins.

Every day in every way.  And a great friend called me out on my "woe is me/Debbie Downer" bullshit I was going through and putting everyone else through.  'Cause I was a pain in the arse to be around when I was low and slow and dejected. 

He said to me..."Why would you waste your sanity and time chasing something that doesn't want you? Something that wouldn't chase you?!  Something that wouldn't show up if you were in the hospital?!  Something that wouldn't show up if your mother died!?  Why are you sad and wrecked over something that does not care that you're sad and wrecked?"  And I felt pretty dumb after that.  If I'm to be honest.  And I'm rarely honest.
 

A few days went by.  And I realized at work one day after that...that I was okay.  That I had that nondescript feeling of feeling "normal."  Where nothing was amiss, and nothing was wrong.  I wasn't missing anyone's anything.  I was Raymond K. Hessel's freedom.  

I wasn't checking facebook for signs of life or for evidence that I was missed.  

I wasn't missing something.  

I wasn't sad.  I was okay.  I was good.


(yes, I feel like a surfing penguin)
 
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Everyone reading this has had a car crash.  In most instances, whether you walk away or not is your choosing.  You choose to be either the person who got divorced/who got dumped/who got hurt/who got imprisoned, or either you choose to walk away and live a vibrant, amazing life.  A life like Raymond K. Hessel.

I'll keep on walking.  And I'll keep living, thank you.