A Time to Reflect

So, I'm sitting here working on a notebook for my Period Styles class which will be handed in on Wednesday. OneNote is a great program, but I need to take a mental break.

Angie and Max were in a fender bender today. Everyone is fine, not a big deal. I'm sure she'll tell everyone all about it. I wasn't there, so I cannot accurately describe what happened. But again, everyone is fine. Angie has taken another step to becoming a full-fledged family member (we all have experienced the old "insurance card" exchange once or twice in our lives...). I believe the next step in becoming a full fledged family member is stitches. That, or a head x-ray, I'm not sure.

It got me thinking. My dad was in a car accident when he was an infant. This was back in the 40's before seatbelts were safe, and before safety glass, let alone baby carseats. As it's been told to me, he was riding on my grandmother's lap and my aunt was driving. There was a collision, and my dad went through the windshield and wound up on the hood of the car. I can't imagine how my grandmother felt at that moment at seeing her child lying face down on the hood of the car. What saved him that day was the fact that my grandmother's elbow hit the windshield and broke it before he hit it. He would up with over 140 stiches in his head, but eventually made a full recovery. (Later in his childhood he had polio and scarlet fever...no wonder he was a tough old softie...)

It got me thinking about the path throughout the generations that has been taken by so many people to make us who we are. Had my grandmother's elbow not hit that windshield a split second before my dad's undeveloped skull, neither I, nor my brothers would be here. Nor would Max. Our persons are not defined by large episodic events, so much as they are by the tiniest of actions. A split second. And when you compare that to the grand scale of time that has taken place throughout the begining of time since the big bang...well, it blows the mind. Now mind you, the episodic, transmformative actions have their great influence too, but they're not the only defining events. And whats more, I'm sure there are events that have happened that none of us are aware of that have shaped us as well. Events that shaped our personalities that we don't even know about and never will.

This is why I believe in fate. Not the three old hags spinning, twisting, and cutting somewhere in Hades (have I mentioned I've had a lot of Greek history this semester?) but something else. Some people account this as being God, and that's great. Others believe it's kismet and that's fine too. I'm not sure what it is, but it's definately out there.

(nothing illegal was smoked prior or during this posting.)