the emotional aspects of the accidental. as things have slowly returned to a state resembling normalcy, i am continually curious about the concurrent state of my well-being and if it really is just fine, as it appears on the surface to be. for the most part, yes, i am fine. i am back in the groove of washing and picking up and shopping and balancing and baking and all the things that my home life require, including a little twice-weekly chiropractic thrown in for good measure. aside from that, i have pulled away from cleveland life, have refused to rejoin the mommy's groups, have not gone to the meetings that my second trimester burst of energy had me running all over town to. and it's the running all over town part that is perhaps the main motivation for my becoming a bit of a hermit. several of the meetings that i might regularly attend are way the hell out, way the hell far away, and more significantly, require or nearly require highway travel, much of it at night, alone, on or near the same highway that the truck careened off of and smashed my bitty car. i have absolutely no desire to revisit the location of my trauma. i subsequently have not one bit of urge to become again the little joiner that i was in recent months. in fact, i find myself holding a grudge against all of cleveland for the unlikely event. we were set to leave from here in approximately a year and a half or so as it was, and i am all prepared for that year and a half to be over sooner rather than later. i am fully prepared for the squashing of time that i might escape this city that tosses it's long haul vehicles over the edges of bridges. i know fully, even while driving, that i am not likely to have another truck fall on me. yet of course i think of cars running red lights and slamming into my side and cars stopping short and skidding into my rear end. but i have always thought of those things. it just seems to be a bit intensified these days, despite the fact that i am confident while driving, that i occassionally rush a bit and get troubled by people going slow in front of me, muttering profanities under my breath as i have always done, even long before the accident. these days i am feeling well on the road. there is no sudden attack of panic, no overwhelming, jaw-clenching fear (notwithstanding tmj) as i make my way on the city streets. i have even on occassion felt that highway travel is within my capabilities, though i haven't yet had a reason to accomplish it. and yet still i do not want to return to the area shown in the early morning hours on every local news channel, that expanse of intersecting and bisecting interstates, cradling the industrial complex below. when i picture it, i see it as the image from the televisions, the image that i remember - the orange glow of street lamps, smokestacks belching in the background, snow still piled in the shoulder lanes, all under the veil of night or early morning darkness. and it is that image that holds me home, without consuming fear, just a constant state of unease, the feeling that i must not go there.