Moving On – A Shrew’s Rant.

So a couple Fridays ago we visited the chick with the broken leg. She’s fine. Had her surgery and is recuperating now. Now she’s a very pleasant girl and I honestly have no reason to wish ill upon her – and I don’t – but whenever I see her or whenever her medical condition comes up in conversation, all I can think is of how I was previously in her seat, and ergo how close I came to having a broken femur, various lacerations about the body and that pinkish scar tissue on my face (I do have my vanities.)

Now I’ve heard it said - by a couple psychology majors so I’ll take their word for it - that people tend to pull together after experiencing a shared traumatic event. I can dig that. So I can understand that while we were on relatively good terms before the accident, the group really became cohesive after the events of December 22, 2009. The problem is however that I personally think it’s high time we move on from constantly making reference to the bleddy accident already. Seriously.

I am a huge fan of moving on. Dwelling on happenings that have already occurred makes no sense to me. I don’t own a time travel machine, therefore I can’t do anything about what has already happened (and according to these guys I can’t anyway) and therefore I’d rather move on and deal with what’s presently taking place. The ‘shoulda, woulda, coulda’ laments irritate me to no end and are the cause of many, many arguments between Mama Shrew and me.

So there we were, chillin, yappin and playing with a small furry dog, when the driver of the vehicle pulled a flash drive out of his pocket and asked the broken legged chick if she was ready to see ‘the stuff’. Naturally I assumed ‘the stuff’ was either a movie or something pertaining to school. It turned out to be pictures of the wreck and video footage of the area where we ran off the road. I was the only one who made no effort to look at ‘the stuff’. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve already had closure from the first set of pics he showed us. I mean really, how many times are they gonna marvel at the state of the car, or the pole that prevented it from flipping completely over, or any of the myriad factors relating to the accident? And how many freaking pictures does he have of these things?!

I am reminded of the time a couple weeks previously when I was having an MSN conversation with the driver. We were chatting about our academic performances. After about an hour or so I decided that I had had enough and told my usual lie about going to bed early due to fatigue. That is when Mr. Man decided it was the opportune time to draw references between our accident and another that had claimed the lives of the car’s four occupants: they were in a new model Toyota while we in an old model Toyota; their group consisted of 3 guys and a girl, our group was 3 girls and a guy; they were heading to the beach, we were coming back from the beach; their group originally had 5 people, our group originally had 5 people; they were celebrating a birthday, we were celebrating the end of finals. I don’t want to say that he sounded gleeful while checking off the list of similarities because I have been told that I over analyse people’s behaviour (I don’t). I will say though that the bugger sounded smug. Smug as hell. Like it didn’t even occur to him that four sets of parents have to bury their children. Like it didn’t even occur to him that we were almost in that same position. I am always disappointed when I realise how fucking insensitive some people can be.

Suffice it to say I now make myself scarce whenever the topic comes up. Heck it’s not like I don’t have other shit happening in my life that warrant my attention and at the rate they’re going, fifteen years from now they’ll be probably still trading memory accounts of the day.