thank you guardian angel .

In the past few years my parents have become more lenient in what I'm allowed to do on my own -- in particular with long driving trips or traveling in general.

Since high school I've driven to Vermont by myself, an 8 hour drive from where I live. I've been flying on my own back and forth from school, and took a trip to NYC for architecture where Ryan, William and I spent most of our time on our own.

The past few winters I've been driving back and forth from Camelback Ski Resort, my home mountain where I snowboard. It's a 2 hour drive each way, and coming home it's usually hard to stay awake given that I just spent a whole day out on the slopes.

Not once have I ever had an accident, despite all this traveling, much of which was on my own or close to it. And as long as I throw some gas in the truck and let them know when I get there and when I'm leaving, it has never been a problem to go. Normally they are iffy about me snowboarding by myself since they are worried I might get hurt out on the slopes and not have anyone there. But I've still been allowed to do it.

Today when I was driving home I was the most tired I have been driving in a long time. I was literally struggling to keep my eyes open, and flashbacks of my sister falling asleep and totaling our third car was most definitely in the back of my mind. I kept telling myself that I should probably stop for a nap before continuing on, and eventually began to start looking for a rest area where I could shut my eyes for a bit.

A few miles before then, my eyes had closed without me realizing, and when I woke up I was drifting towards the wheels of an 18 wheeler going 70 miles an hour. Realizing what was happening, I jerked the wheel back to the left to stay in the middle of my lane. And I swear my heart almost stopped when I awoke and saw what almost happened. I'm not sure what I would have done had I a) totaled my dad's car, or even got in another accident (I've been in 3... :/ ) or b) gotten hurt while out on my own like that.

It really makes me thankful to have that guardian angel constantly watching over me, and I truly believe that we all have our own special guardian, whether you believe it's an angel or not. I mean in all honesty, what a cool concept, to have an otherworldly figure watching over you day and night, making sure you don't get into too much trouble, and if you do, they are there to pull you out of it.

I wish I could "meet" them. Him, her, whatever. I was watching TV one time, and Sylvia Browne happened to be on a channel I flipped to. For those of you who don't know who she is, she supposedly has psychic abilities and can also communicate with those who have passed on. Well, this is the advice she gave in order to communicate with our guardian angels: "What you do, every night, or in the mornings -- find a special time for yourself and lie down, and just kind of relax yourself all over. Take yourself to a seashore. Put your feet in the sand, put your back against the palm tree. Feel the sun on your face, and the wind on your hair. And then just ask your guide, "Come out of the shadows and talk to me." If you do this, for a week to 10 days, I promise you, you'll begin to see your spirit guide and your angels."

Whether you believe she's legit or not, it can't hurt to try, right? It's the same concept as religion -- no one really knows what's going to happen after we die. So we can spend our life living in skepticism or we can celebrate a religion of our choosing. If we die and what exists is what we believe, then we are saved from eternal torment. And if there is simply nothingness, well there is nothing lost, and those beliefs in our current life probably got us through a great many things. Usually I fall asleep soon after or during my prayers at night so I don't get a chance to try to communicate with my guardian angel. But I do feel that there is a presence looking over me sometimes. I've had my fair share of feelings that there was someone or something looking out for me. There's also the problem that I am usually so exhausted that if I lay down for a moment I'm completely out of it until the next day.

But now it's winter break, and I can take it easy a bit, and maybe try some of this stuff out and see what happens. It'd be pretty sweet to almost have a friendship with a guardian angel, or spirit guide, or whatever you'd like to call it. For right now, though, I'm just happy I made it home safe and alive today. With me being as tired as I was, it certainly could have turned into a very stressful day. So thanks, I needed it.