You might be Immortal, but You’re not Invincible

I was hit by a truck last week. I was biking home from work. A routine trip I’ve made hundreds of times. Checked my rear, signalled that I was changing lanes to get to the left turn lane. Then I was struck from behind by a pickup truck.

Later, when the EMTs and highway patrol officers were asking questions of me and the driver who’d hit me, the driver estimated that he’d been going 30–35 mph, which means we can assume that he was going at least 45 mph, because no one tells police the speed they were actually going, and no one does 35 mph on Sir Francis Drake Blvd unless they’re slowing down for a red light, are being tailed by police, or they’re on a bicycle.

So my bike was hit at an estimated 45 mph by a 1985 Nissan junker pickup truck. My rear wheel was crunched and almost folded all the way in on itself like a tortilla. I fell, flew a bit, backwards onto the truck’s hood and windshield. Then, when the truck came to a sudden stop, I flew forward, landing on my ass and lower back on the asphalt.

All things considered, I was lucky. The worst of my injuries were some deep bruising and some skin peeled off to the white meat. No broken bones. No evident brain damage. No shattered spine. No internal organs bleeding. No evident brain damage. No evident brain damage. No evi…

I had my helmet on. When I was on the truck’s hood I felt a bump to the back of my head, so good thing I had the helmet. I also had a backpack stuffed full of books, which I believe absorbed a lot of the impact. So I can now say that books literally helped save my life. Mostly, I was just lucky. As lucky as one can be after the bad luck of being rear ended by a truck.

I joked to family, friends, and my girlfriend, in the wake of the accident, that I am immortal. Not the first time I’ve made the claim. I’ve survived many accidents, assaults, various injuries. It is a little impressive, the number of times I’ve almost been killed but haven’t been. Also daunting. And could speak more to my predilection for getting into dangerous situations than my resilience in getting out of them.

I’m also not as young as I was and not necessarily bouncing back as quickly. As well as I still do bounce back, I know I won’t forever. If something doesn’t kill me, the likelihood that it will cripple me or otherwise make my life more painful and difficult increases. And, also, I know that something will eventually someday kill me. Because I’m not actually high on my own testosterone enough to believe I truly am immortal. And I damn sure am not invincible. Every injury has hurt. The effects of many of them linger, even if I don’t notice.

I’m learning as I age, becoming less reckless. I still do stuff that many might consider some reckless shit, but I’m getting better, more cautious, more fearful. Not that I wasn’t afraid of plenty of things when I was younger, but the specter of my own brutal mortality loomed less large in my youth. Anything physical, I was confident I could either do it well or survive doing it badly. Not that I ever truly believed I was immortal or invincible and needed to learn otherwise, but I have learned that I need to take better care of myself, to be more careful. I’ve learned, or rather gotten better at accepting, my limitations. Natural human limitations. Not only am I not a superhero, it would really behoove me to stop trying to be like one. That, in addition to the driver’s insurance company reimbursing me for the cost of my wrecked bike and giving me an extra thousand as a settlement, is the upside to this latest traumatic learning experience. More than anything, I’ve learned that I am getting too old for this shit.