You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have…

Natalie Serwan
Aug 9, 2017 · 3 min read

In the days following a devastating event, whether it be an accident, an avoidable death, the loss of a limb, the misspoken word… You tend to look at certain moments and think “If only I had done X different, the outcome would have been different.”

The brain has ways of trying to rationalize things. When my Uncle Davey died, I know the general consensus was “if only he had started treatment sooner”, “if only we knew how truly bad it was”… “if only…” “if only…”

If only our brains didn’t play these cruel games on us.

Today, I was in a minor car accident. This is the second one in just over five months. “If only I had started from home this morning instead of Wenonah.” The damage is nowhere near as bad as the first accident I was in this year. “If only I had driven straight to Philadelphia instead of Glassboro.” I am okay, the other vehicle’s passengers, including a small child in a car seat, are okay. “If only I had gotten gas at the Woodbury Wawa instead of the Glassboro Wawa.” The road it occurred on was freshly paved and hadn’t had any lanes marked, at all, for a 4 lane road with multiple areas for people to be turning. “If only the borough would’ve painted the road.”

The “if only” scenarios have been screaming in my brain since 9:03 this morning. Second only to my determination to find a way to fix things before I could tell my fiancè. Given that I am no body shop mechanic, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to wave a magic wrench around and fix the car.

“If only I had gotten the job with [company]”

Moments after impact, I resigned myself to my fate of having a really shit day, took the Lord’s name in vain along with a slew of cuss words, and then got down to business. I’ve learned a lot about myself over the last almost three years of being completely broke, mainly that in times of extreme danger, I tend to compartmentalize, get what needs to be done, done, and then break down later. Sometimes later comes days or weeks, or in some cases, months after the need for compartmentalization arises. It took me about an hour and six minutes after impact to temporarily break down, but after a few minutes of crying on my boyfriend’s shoulder and being calmed down by him, it was back to business.

“If only I had done anything different.”

But that is the thing, you never know when something is going to go wrong. You can’t do anything to go back and see if the “if only” scenarios would’ve actually changed a damn thing.

I called my insurance company, reported the claim, scheduled the intake at the shop, got a rental (all with the help of the wonderful adjuster from AAA). I let the dog out to pee. I informed my fiancè of the accident. I broke down again, but this time it was a bunch of ugly crying and wailing and hugging my cats and then passing out for a few hours. Woke up to my bestie blowing up my phone to come take my mind off of all of the bullshit, the boyfriend showed up shortly after, we grabbed a few brews and sat back, vented, played a bit of Evil Apples, and I felt rejuvenated and ready to get back to the fight to make it all okay again.

So, here I am, 16 hours later, trying to get the “if only” scenarios to stop running through my brain, so I’m getting it all out there in the form of written word. This feels a bit like a LiveJournal post, where I should add a “mood” and pick the right avatar for the topic… If only Medium had those features.

Tomorrow morning the real work starts. Something poignant from one of the most unexpected source of the most recent episode of the cartoon show ‘Rick and Morty’ struck me last night and it's striking me again today: “The thing about repairing, maintaining, and cleaning is - it's not an adventure. There is no way to do it so wrong you might die. It's just -work-, and the bottom line is, some people are okay going to work, and some people… well, some people would rather die. Each of us gets to choose.”

I choose to go to work, and to stop wondering about all of the “if only” scenarios. It happened, I can’t change it, I can’t fix it immediately, so the only way to make it better is to work.

Natalie Serwan

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A quirky photographer with a few cats, a dog, and a coffee addiction.