All in an instant...

We've all heard the classic if not cliche saying "My life flashed before my eyes." I've never really put much stock into it. You can't really understand what it means until it actually happens to you. Can one's entire life really flash before your eyes in the matter of a second or two?
Without joking and really being serious for a change I can say that it does in fact happen to a person. Today I experienced something of the sorts though I wouldn't say that my entire life flashed before my eyes. It's difficult to explain before I get into the story so I guess I'll have to start from the beginning. It's usually the best place to start these kind of experiences off at.
Today I didn't sub so I decided to go out for a 3 hour cruising bike ride. Something easy after a tough workout yesterday. I headed South to avoid the hills up North and I was planning on hanging out at one of the lookout spots to watch the whales. After a loop around Kapalua then past Whaler's Village I set out along 30. Highway 30 is perfect for biking by the way. A nice 10 breakdown lane the entire way is ideal for biking. The wind was around 15 miles an hour coming off the ocean so nothing too serious to knock me around.
I'd been riding for a good while. Cruising down in the aero bars. I'd just gotten out of the hills and was riding along a stretch with long stretches of trees blocking the ocean, acting as a nice buffer from the wind. At this point I was moving around 27-30 mph kind of in robot mode on the bike. I usually zone out on these kinds of rides when I get in the zone. Traffic is constant but never really heavy in this area.
I'm riding along when I come up to a big ocean patch in the trees that opens up the ocean view. Suddenly I'm hit with a strong wind gust (around 20-30 mph gust) that just rocks me from the right side and shoves my bike into the road. Since I'm in the aero bars I'm nowhere near the brakes and in a very unstable position on the bike. I have very little control over the bike. It shoves me a goo couple feet over the white line as a large sand carrier is coming by. All I hear is an earsplitting horn, airbrakes slam on as I'm literally throwing myself and my bike back across the white line. As this is happening I can actually feel the truck going by me. I can't see it as my eyes are squeezed shut as I wait to feel either the side of the truck slam into me and drag me under or the wheels roll over and suck me under them. At this point I'm still traveling over 20 miles an hour. Somehow I've unclipped my right foot and have gotten my left hand onto a brake as I'm toppling off the road. I come skidding to a stop/crash and hit the ground going about 10 mph, become completely unclipped and crash into some underbrush and dirt. The bike comes to a rest next to me. The truck had slowed down and the guy in the passenger seat looks out and at me. I give a wave letting them know I'm alive and they continue on. This entire time no other vehicles go by. After a couple minutes I recollect myself; very minor scrape on the elbow and my bike survived with no damage. I get back on the bike and continue the ride with no other issues other than a car cutting me off within the last couple miles of the ride.
So that's the physical aspect of the ride. An outside observer would have see everything I just described. The entire incident took about 3 seconds from horn to me tumbling to the ground.
Here's what happened to me as it happened. When the wind hit me I was zoned out. I can't even remember where my mind was. I didn't hear the massive truck coming up on me. I didn't hear anything. The wind hit me and the next thing I know I hear the horn. My entire body tenses up and I am expecting death. No lies, no exaggerating. In my head I'm just saying "Fuck!" and I cry out. I don't really remember throwing myself to the side. You know when something really bad is coming like when something is thrown at you and you don't see it until the last moment? You know you can't avoid it so you close your eyes and wait for it to hit you? That's what this is like only about 1000 times worse. When I say I felt the truck going by I mean if my eyes were open and I looked over at it I could have banged my head against it. Try to imagine laying your body along a road and having a large truck drive by you at about 40 mph only to miss your head by inches. The force of the truck going by actually shook me.
At these moments time does play games with you. To me it felt like the whole thing took like 20 seconds instead of the two or three. In the few seconds this was going on my mind froze. At this point I don't think I actually had time to be really afraid. This is where the whole "Life flashing before your eyes" thing happened. Cause in a way it really does only for me it wasn't some played out story or a series of moments that happened or one day would. From what I can remember it was just a couple of images of things that went through my mind before suddenly I was back and tumbling into the side of the road. They kind of flicked through and that was it. There was no order of relevance like the most important thing in my life came first. Just a series of quick images like I was quickly scrolling through a camera. In a blink I was out of it and watching the shoulder of the road coming at me at 20 mph as I am coming out of the aero bars, unclipping a foot and reaching for a brake all without thinking.
Then it's over. The truck is past, I'm alive and I'm slowly and shakily picking myself off the ground. I vaguely remember waving the truckers off. and biking up my bike. My body won't stop shaking and my heart almost hurts it's beating so hard. I feel like I'm in a daze and things around me are almost surreal. I look over my bike to make sure it's not damaged. I check myself. Other than a minor scrape on the elbow I'm fine. No bruises, broken bones, nothing.
I swing my leg over the bike as I begin to get back on and continue the ride. Then it all hits me. I've never experienced anything like it before. It was like complete terror suddenly envelopes me. I have to take slow deep breaths to try and calm myself down. It sinks in how close I was to being killed right there. I've had close calls before with vehicles while I was running and biking. When I did the West Maui Loop for example. I've been in a car accident where it could have been a lot worse than it was. But as far as I can recall I've never been in an incident where I should have been killed. This is one of those times where I should not have walked away alive. I go over it again and again in my head and I can't fathom how I did not wind up under that truck.
I stood there on my bike shaking a little with my elbows on the aero bar pads and my head in my hands. My eyes were closed as I relived what happened over and over again. I didn't want to get back on the bike; actually at that moment I couldn't get back on. I listened as cars went by and I couldn't help but wonder if one of those would hit me if I continued riding.
Right now as I type this I can remember every instance of that experience and still my heart jumps into my throat and I get scared. I don't think I'll ever forget the feeling of pure terror that went through me right after that happened. It's one of those things you experience in nightmares even years after it happened. For a couple moments I was not sure I was going to get myself back under control. I guess the best way to imagine the jarring shock I went through is to picture one of those movies where you're in the car with a group of characters and everything is all peaceful. Then suddenly another vehicle smashes into the car and the camera is still there. Everyone in the theatre kind of cries out. That's a diluted version of it.
I don't know how I convinced myself to clip back into the pedals and get back on the road. But within three or four minutes of almost dying I was back on the bike continuing the ride. It had nothing to do with not wanting to miss a workout or anything stupid like that. It just seemed like the thing I had to do. I kept riding.
But the incident would not leave my mind. It all stayed in my head like it just happened. There was no zoning out the rest of the ride. I just went over everything that happened like a hundred times. If this was one of those theories where there are like a million different dimensions and only 1 small thing is different in each one well in every other Earth I would have died. Every way I look at it I can't figure it out. How did I survive that?
I've never been a super religious person as everyone knows. I obviously believe in God. I know there is that spiritual aspect of life but I don't pretend to understand it. I go to church when I'm peer pressured. But even I'm not an idiot. There is no other reasonable explanation about this. I can play this over and over for the rest of my life and still I won't be able to explain exactly how it all went down.
Even as I sit here and stare at the screen I am still in shock. I managed to get home, stretch, eat, go to work all evening, pretty much function like a normal human being with all this running through my head.

Then it just brings up the questions:

How the hell did I not get crushed by that truck?

What decided upon the images that flashed through my mind and what was the significance of them?

How was I able to keep biking? At this point having thought everything out I feel like I should just head right back home.

Why me?

Does this mean I'm going to turn over this new leaf and live a pure and honest life? Will I attend church all the time and become a better person for the world? Obviously not. I know there are people out there who would but as I see it something like that is not feasible for everyone. I am going to continue living the life I've been given. Do I see things different or more clearly now? For the most part no but there are some things I want to look into now. Not so much Carpe Diem but there is that whole "It's never too late..." tagline I want to invoke.
I tried really hard not to change anything about this experience or exaggerate anything about it. From what I could recollect everything happened as I wrote it. I obviously kept some of the more personal things to myself as I am not really into exposing my deepest darkest things to the world. As time moves forward I will probably follow up on this posting. Probably when some enlightened thought or revelation dawns upon me.
It’s funny cause there was so much more I wanted to write but as I look at this now most of it has left my head and this is already pretty long.
For now I'm tired and must sleep. Work in 5 1/2 hours.
Goodnight world...
Thanks for another day on this planet.