About 35 minutes ago, I was sitting in my car at a stop light. And BANG.

I was rear-ended.

I looked in my rear-view mirror, saw the driver of the car behind me, I put my car into park, turned on my hazards, turned off my car and got out. I don’t know what my face was doing, exactly, but I remember my hands being outstretched, as in, “What the f***?” I said nothing.

A guy gets out of the offending car. He’s an older guy, wearing a straw hat. He looked like he could have been one of Tony Soprano’s guys. He said to me, “Are you alright honey? My brakes failed, my car’s fine. No damage to your car?”

I got down, looked at my car, and there was a mark on the rubber/plastic bumper where his car had hit, a little scratch on the bumper… that was it.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m okay. I’m sorry, honey.”

“Okay. Be careful.”

We sort of hugged.

And I got into my car, and he got into his. And that was that. (I moved out of his lane.)

I was about two miles from my house. And all the while, I thought, “I should have exchanged insurance information. I should have got a phone number, a name. Does my neck hurt?” Other thoughts like these went through my head at about a mile a minute.

The guy who hit me pulled alongside me, and then ahead at another red light. I couldn’t resist.

I just needed to know I could track him down if I needed to. (And to folks out there who know where I live and drive on the same streets as me, take heed of this car.) But I won’t need to. I’m fine. Our cars are fine. My car in particular might be worth less than his. And most important: none of the $250+ worth of Costco merchandise, loaded carefully into the back of my nine-year-old Forester, was damaged.

A few minutes later, as I approached the entrance to my neighborhood, I saw three sheriff’s cars and three other cars and a tow truck. One of the three cars was on the grassy median–the one I pass every day as I turn out of our neighborhood. It was not a horrible accident, (everybody was standing) but it was a pretty expensive one, both in terms of money and stress.

***

I’ve been feeling so unsettled. My husband is training for a half-marathon, to be run in February. He said, “yeah, it’ll be fun to do, if we’re still here.” I don’t know whether we’ll find out we have to move at year-end, or quarter-end. I don’t know if I’ll need to be an effectively single parent for the last couple months of the school year, or if we’ll have our kids start at a new school in April.

I. Know. Nothing. As always.

Except for one thing: I am a lucky, lucky girl.

And Tony Soprano’s guy? He is a lucky, lucky man. As long as he gets his brakes fixed.