This story begins the Halloween of my 16th year, the day that my mother finally told me to get out of her house and not come back, and I, in a very silence of the lambs fashion, took my German Shepard (whom she wanted to abandon, and I fought over, and was the cause of my homelessness) away to a coworkers home, where I lived for about six months in less than 5 square feet with my Huckleberry Finn (my dog, whom I still have to this day).




I was forced to leave everything behind, except for my dog, my rats, and a bag that I had prepared earlier that year when my mother started making me live in the garage, about the time that I had assumed that it was only a matter of time before she kicked me out. Luckily, I was right, and because of that, I still have all of my most cherished memories (baby books, etc) and she lost hers when she lost the house - another story, another time, a tale of meth labs and debauchery, including my stepfather stealing and wearing all of my underwear whilst video taping himself pretending to be me.

Having been forced to leave behind my bed, my tv, my dresser - all things I had purchased, new, for myself - was a shame. However, having to leave other things behind - like PARENTAL PERMISSION - was rather gratifying, and in a bout of teenage rebellion, I built a Vespa with my (now) husband, CartMaster Chris.


This, ladies and gentleman, is Mitzy, my first mode of transportation. We built her straight out of a box. Isn't she a beaut?

All was well for a while - quite a long while, actually. However, I had always said, as a joke, that it was highly unlikely that I would make it to my 18th birthday... but, due to all my preparation, my friends and family were unsurprised when I spent my 18th birthday in the hospital, having been in a serious hit and run accident on March 2nd, 2008, that nearly left me dead.

I had been on my way home from Dennys late at night, for I had been working the graveyard shift, and I was driving down Greenback Lane in Citrus Heights, California, and I had been in the process of changing lanes when a small red car, driving well over the speed limit, sped past me. Luckily, I was small, and was able to manuever myself a bit out of its way, and split the lane. Unfortunately, there was a car right next to me, and when the little red car smashed into the left side of my handlebar, I was pushed -quite forcefully - down, and under, the car in the far right lane.

My foot was caught in the undercarriage of the car, and I was pulled solidly, but by nothing more than sheer will power and adrenaline, I managed to hoist myself upright, lean all my weight against the side, and cling the the side of the car. My foot, however, would never be the same. It was dragged under the car, and something sharp and hot tore viciously into the dip of my ankle. Within moments, the amount of blood I lost was phenomenal. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, my foot was smashed against something else as the car I was boxed in to came to a halt - the muffler, which cauterized my wounds instantly, but left me with a scar about the size of a fifty cent piece that will never fade.

No one got the license plate of the other car, and there was no information to be shared. Mitzy, my bike, was shaped rather more like an 'L' than a bike, but I wouldn't know that until the morning. I rode the bike to my then boyfriends house, now Husband, on what I would discover to be a completely undriveable machine - the tires were flat, the handles were crushed, and it was no longer structurally stable. I had felt it shaking all the way to his house - about a half a mile from the accident - but I had incorrectly assumed that it was me that was shaking.

I had steady as a rock though, for all my injuries. I had broken my rib clinging to the side of that car, I would later be unable to hold any weight on my right foot for several weeks, and I was battered an bruised from keeping myself from being sucked under the car... but I was alright. It wasn't until Chris answered the door, took one horrifyed look at my broken and bloody body, that I even begin to cry, and then, I was inconsolable. I slept on his couch, and he nursed me back to health.

Since then, I have been in 4 other accidents on various other motorcycles before I finally gave up riding, none of them my fault, and all of them I barely survived out of sheer tenacity, quick thinking, and ability to know when its time to jump off. 3 of them were in the month of October 2008. My friends all tell me that I am the most unlucky person they know - I beg to differ. I believe that people are given a finite amount of luck in life, and I used all mine up in one go, finding my soulmate from across the country, when we had lived less than a mile apart and never knew our whole lives other than when it was socially acceptable for us to be together. When we finally could date, he was in CO, and I was in CA, and yet somehow, we met.

I no longer ride bikes, but I shall never forget my first. My rightfoot, for one, will never let me.

Happy 18th birthday, Selah Gaynor. Welcome to adult hood.