Cruddiest weekend in a long time

Ready for take two of my get healthy journey, I was on my way to work Friday when a completely unexpected blow came.  As I was driving over an overpass about to turn left, on my right I saw a young man facing the street but on the other side of the overpass railing, above the freeway below.  I slowed down a bit to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing but couldn't stop as slowing down caused the jerk behind me to speed up, ensuring I couldn't go too slow.  This young man didn't look upset he simply looked like he was playing on a big toy at the park which made me thing he was special needs. I called 911 as I turned left to go to work, described what he was wearing what I thought and specifically where he was and hung up. Moments later when I got to work, I heard the distant wails of fire engines, stopped for a moment but went into my building as I was running late.

Soon I heard people talking about some accident on the freeway and traffic being horrible.  I found out there was a fatality.  The boy fell and died. The same boy I saw moments before the accident while cars were zooming passed and a pedestrian was walking by... Being a nurse I'm sure you can imagine there are few things that can rip my emotional brick walls down. That did.  My bosses took me into their office and let me "get it out." They said things like, "There was nothing you can do." "Imagine if you did get to him and he fell in front of you." It's not that that bothered me. It was the simple fact that there was a young man, standing on the other side of the freeway overpass and no cars were stopped. The headlines read "Freeways open up after 3 hour delay" with no hint that it was a 14-year-old boy until the last paragraph. Even two days later, no mention is made of his family. Yesterday on my way to work, I took a different freeway exit but felt incredibly nauseous when I drove under that overpass.

My reason for writing this is I need to let it go. I need to accept the fact that I may never know who this young man was, what drove him to climb to where he was, and whether or not he was special needs. His expression, that same "in my own world" expression that quite often on my own daughters face will forever be in my mind somewhere.

At work I was able to rebuild my walls, finish my shift (quite a blur it was), and have a good breakdown later.  But fortunately that same day, a supervisor was leaving and there was an impromtu potluck. This was my first plate.

A multi-ethnic smorgasbord of epic proportions. I had two plates like this, some tiramisu, and copious amounts of mt dew. It's amazing how much food can make you feel better, albeit temporarily. So, tomorrow, again,  I will restart my goals.  That's what's great about life, there's always a reset button.