There's this theory in science that solid matter is made of billions and trillions of atoms - separate elements that make up individual components of being.

These atoms vibrate, moving around each other so fast they actually create a solid surface.

Your table. Your coffee mug. The body of a car.

When two cars meet, there's a moment when these vibrations cease. Everything becomes muffled, the way a fresh snow silences the world, flakes absorbing sound. There is no motion.

And in the next moment, there's only noise: glass shattering, metal crunching, bodies thrusting forward.

This Sunday, near the Tappan Zee Bridge on I-87/287 Eastbound, I got rear-ended by an 18-wheeler in my Honda Fit. His brakes failed and he hit me going maybe 30-40 MPH. The force pushed me forward for him to hit me a second time.

I wasn't hurt. My airbags didn't go off. I shook so much trying to find my registration for the policeman that he had to check that I was sober.

I bought this car this same time last year. By now, I was living on my own, paying all my own bills, including a recent phone purchase. I was set. The past year I had dedicated to getting myself on my own feet and no one else's.

This threw a bit of a wrench in things.

"I don't mean to call you like this," I asked my dad over the phone, "But what do I do?"

"Get out of the car and get his insurance information. Take pictures, call 911, call GEICO," he began. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, just keep going."

My rear window was gone. My entire truck shoved in. Even the area around the gas cap had buckled - God only knows what that could mean.

The man who hit me was named Gary. He was sweet and he was also happy I was still alive.

"I put the brake pedal to the floor and it didn't even slow down," he apologized. "But I'm so happy you're okay."

Eventually, a man with a tow truck came.

"Wait!" I told him as he began to lower the ramp and hook my car in. I hadn't fully gotten in touch with my insurance company. My GEICO policy didn't cover collision anyway, but from a logistical standpoint, I wasn't sure what to do.

I couldn't leave my car in New York.

"Listen," I told the guy. "My family lives in Maryland. I live in Massachusetts. I have multiple jobs and can't afford to leave my car in New York where I don't really have any contacts. I have to get home somehow. What are my options?"

The towing man took me around to the back of the vehicle without saying anything. Gruffly, he began; "Okay, first? You have to get rid of all this glass." He pointed to my truck which had broken glass all over the inside of it. "Pull over into the parking lot of the Palisades Mall here. Go all the way in the back. Brush off the glass.

"Next, go to the Auto Zone. Turn right out of there and it's no more than 10 minutes away. You need some kind of clear plastic to replace the rear window and a red plastic or tape to cover the bottom part of your taillight."

"Thank you. So much, sir," I told him.

"You're welcome. That should get you all set. You gotta get off the road now though. Try to have a good Thanksgiving."

"I will."

Have you ever had something shitty happen to you and thought nothing of it?

While brushing off the glass in the parking lot, I called Auto Zone. The guy told me they didn't even have any kind of plastic that could help me out, so the Target attached to the mall seemed like a better idea.

I had to get home. Somehow. I was frustrated. I didn't want to think about whether or not this guy's insurance company would pay up. But it was dark and it was cold and I was coming back from New Jersey. I had work in the morning and I needed to get home.

I had been in contact with both my parents about the status of what was going on. Every now and then, I would pause and would start expressing my worries about the logistical side of things. "We'll get there," my dad told me. "We just need to get you home and safe and warm, okay?"

"Okay," I responded, walking into the aisle of tape in Target.

I bought one of those packing tape rolls that came with a cutting handle and went to town. The wind was probably 25 MPH and there were snow flurries and I spent a solid 45 minutes taping up the back of my car, not even stopping to think if it would maintain for the remainder of the drive. I just tried to tape it as well as possible, putting gorilla glue on the edges.

When it was all over, I was laughing about it. Some kids who couldn't have been older than 15 came up to me in the parking lot and were like, "WHOAHHH, DUDE, ARE YOU OKAY?!" It was cute. I kind of laughed about it. There was actually quite a bit amusing about the image of me on my knees with packing tape in a parking lot taping up the back of my car in awful weather.

And from there, I did it. I drove home. Two and a half hours back to Easthampton. No troubles from my tape job, no troubles from the car. When I got home, I parked it, went inside and went to bed. I'd deal with it in the morning.

I consider myself a catastrophist, meaning, I constantly assume the worst in every situation. I write a lot about controlling the things you can control because I've spent most of my life fighting to do just that. I've never been good at it by any means until recent years.

But there's something about this whole incident that didn't phase me as much as it should have.

I never allowed myself to think of the risk of driving an extra two and a half hours with a busted car. That area around the gas cap that was smashed? That could have done anything. The car could have exploded. It didn't, thank God, but...

There's something unsettling when everyone says, "Wow, I'm so glad that you're not hurt and that you're alive!" but you never even thought for a moment about the risk that either of those things would happen.

As I re-tell the story, I keep saying, "I'm lucky to be alive, or even okay." When I look at the damage objectively, I really am, but it doesn't feel that way.

I never considered the possibility of physical harm or death. I was unphased. If I was phased by anything, it was the momentary fear of dealing with how to get the repairs accounted for.

All I wanted to do was get home. I was so fixated on what was ahead, in the immediate future, on progressing that I was forced to stop and acknowledge any number of terrible possible outcomes. I can say, "I'm thankful to be alive and nothing is more beautiful than that."

At a certain point, your survival instinct kicks in. For me, it happens in the face of threatening tragedies only, like being in a car accident.

My mother was struggling to comprehend what happened. She herself was in Delray Beach, Florida with her mother and father. Her dad - my grandfather - has been dying for a couple of years now. A few days ago, he entered a coma. He won't make it much longer.

I visited my grandparents in Florida at the end of the summer of 2015. We knew Grandpa Jerry's health wasn't looking great. Partly immobilized, shaking, sometimes unable to eat or speak or remember. His eyes would be glassy and you wouldn't know if he was there.

During that visit, we had some of our best conversations. We talked about our family tree and old memories. I never felt so connected to the man. Years ago, when I was in middle school, I was down there for vacation with my cousins. I got in a fight with all of them so bad that they bought me an early plane ticket to fly me home to my parents.

It's middle school, ya know?

Other than my aunt's remarriage when I was in high school, I haven't interacted with them in person since.

Now he's going to be gone and I learned the most about him I ever did a year ago.

Things like you don't get to choose. I think we all begrudgingly know that on some level. During the holidays, you'll probably have to spend a lot of time around people you don't really know that well but pretend to like them, i.e. family.

You don't have to get along with your family. Some people are kicked out of the house when they're really young for a variety of reasons; look at the queer homeless youth population. I'm not here to tell you that you have to get along with them for the sake of whatever. That's not my job.

What I do want to say is learn more about the people in your life. Make the good connections stronger. Tell people you appreciate them more. Spend more time alone. Do more things you like.

Sometimes horrible things happen. Sometimes things don't work out the way we want them to. Sometimes things don't make sense. They don't have to. Not everything happens for a reason. And that's okay. We're all just trying to survive.

But sometimes we get so focused on moving forward that we're never living in the present. You can live for that next big thing but don't forget to look around and appreciate the things you already have.