Some Good Deeds Are Unpredictable

Anxiety has always been in my life. As far back as I can remember I have had nervous tendencies and overwhelming perceptions of everyday life. It was like anxiety was interwoven into the fabric of my very being and the tapestry formed dropped a few loops and the quality was shaky at best. At the age of sixteen, this tangled mess of perpetual unease that covered me like a parody of a superhero’s cape had finally reached its highest peak.

I had gotten into my first car accident.

Okay, yeah, I know how it sounds. A teenager’s first bumper dings from braking too slow at an intersection is hardly a new situation by any means. It is very well known that newer drivers are more prone to accidents due to their lack of practice behind the wheel. Said teenager’s keys would be taken away, the damages would (hopefully) be resolved and then they learn to be more careful on the road instead of blasting music and not paying attention to the traffic lights changing. This is just a generalization of the average fender bender in a high school parking labyrinth filled with freshly printed licenses and Priuses. I was the outlier in this rudimentary scenario, but let me provide some additional context.

While my constant trepidation was never fully debilitating, it did put a damper on what would normally be a celebratory stage of adulthood. In the movies you always see teenagers jumping with joy and shouting their excitement when receiving their keys for their birthday and there on trying to find every and any opportunity to show off their model of car. In drivers training, I had heard horror stories of accidents and the permanent damage caused by the lack of understanding the sheer responsibility it meant to drive a four thousand pound hunk of metal and rubber down the highway. As you can imagine, this greatly influenced my reaction to receiving my own car keys for my sixteenth birthday.

That doesn’t mean I wasn't grateful-I was greatly appreciative of my parents to have provided my own form of independent transportation for me. I couldn’t deny that the idea that I could go anywhere and everywhere on my own schedule was exciting. Unfortunately, with that exhilarating feeling, came an underlying sour taste on the back of my tongue that always seemed to remain. It felt like I was much too aware of my body and the tin box I was driving in. It held almost too much responsibility. With practice, though, came the familiar ease of a mundane task that I wholeheartedly through myself into despite that basal layer of fear humming in the back of my head.

And then I wrecked my car.

When I say wrecked, I am not referring back to the fender bender that was the common bane of both inexperienced drivers and their parents alike. What I mean when I say wrecked it was able to be driven into the shop. Barely. The best way to describe what happened is by saying I tried to make my car give a firm hug to another car. Firm is a bit of an understatement, but we will go with it. The entire front end of my car was shattered and the paint was stripped away. The right side of my car looked like it went ten rounds with a transformer and lost. The front had lost all of its paint and ability to function in regards to the door. The back end of my car was roughly identical to the front and that side of my wheels had bent the axels a bit, which just made my car look bowlegged. The other individual's car was about the same but on the left side, ergo, a ‘hug’.

As you can imagine, that continuous humming of worriment was now a thousand member choir of sopranos all screaming in different keys. Standing before the mess I had made had finally put my anxiety at its zenith. That tattered blanket of tension I had always worn now felt like it had been brought up over my head, suffocating me like the tightening of a hangman's noose. The threads of stress tangled with my nerves felt like a livewire equivalent to that of the electric chair, shocking me to my very core relentlessly. I was freshly sixteen and so, so scared. I can’t imagine what I must have looked like to those close enough to see the accident. Probably a huddled up figure sobbing into the sleeves of their knit sweater, trying so hard to remember the next steps they had learned in the driver's education course. Insurance and pictures? No wait- a phone number and then insurance? What about the police? Did they need to be called? What do I do? I can’t calm down, I can’t focus any-

And then someone talking. It sounded similar to when someone tries talking to you underwater. Muffled and kind of distant. That is what if felt like, actually- like I was underwater and someone was pulling me up. The hand on my shoulder was grounding and I can distinctly recall looking up and a woman in her mid thirties, wearing scrubs and a dental hygienist nametag. It was the other driver. She was smiling at me and I remember feeling so confused at the time. She was smiling. How could she be smiling? I had just destroyed half of her car and she was smiling at me. I had seen road rage, both in the backseat of my parents car at a young age as well as depicted in training videos where I was educated about driving and not once had anyone ever smiled in those instances. There was yelling and blaming and sometimes even violent acts between drivers. Looking back on it, I think that is what had scared me so much. Yet, here I was and there she was. Smiling at me with the corners of her eyes crinkled up and saying something.

When the static in my ears finally fell silent, I could hear what she had been saying as she rubbed my shoulder. Are you okay? I think you’re in shock, Sweetheart. Is there someone I can call for you? My jaw would have dropped if I hadn't been close to throwing up at that point. The adrenaline was slowly wearing off and here I was a shaking mess while this woman whom, may I remind you, I just got in an accident with and here she was asking if I was okay. Thankfully, we both were and just the cars were torn up instead of us. I don’t know how it had happened, but the next thing I knew she was hugging me and rubbing my back. I can’t even remember her name but I can recall her telling me that the first accident is always the worst. She told me how she had her own first accident when she was seventeen and how she had been alone and frightened with no one around but the other driver. She held me and said how I wasn’t going to be alone like she had been.

She stayed with me and helped me call my parents and made sure to notify them that I was okay. This woman remained there with me and helped me through the exchange of insurance information and refused to leave when it was over, despite being late for her shift at the local dentist’s office. She stood there with me, and unwound that panic provided noose until it was nothing more than the raggedy cape that permanently hung from my shoulders. In that moment, even that felt impossibly lighter. There was no reason she had to show me such kindness, especially since it was my fault that this had happened. That small gesture of warmth and goodwill she had given and continued to display throughout the hour she stayed with me had completely popped the suffocating bubble I had blown around myself. The anxiety attack had been reversed in the span of minutes instead of the hours it usually took when they were sprung upon me.

We parted ways after she made sure I had a safe way home and later that night after the insurance claims were all sorted, I was notified that the other driver had waved the damage fees completely for her end.

When it comes to good deeds, most often the first thought is volunteer work or helping an older individual cross the street. No one ever imagines a car accident or panic attacks and the dental hygienists who spend their time with a complete stranger making sure they’re okay. The empathy and genuine humanity shown to me that day resonated with me and now I try to offer aid to the best of my ability in everyday life. The little things really do matter and can impact those around you, especially the unpredictable, selfless ones.