A Near-Tragic Turn on the Road to 'Yes!'

Four years ago, Dec. 14 was a Saturday. Leaving a music rehearsal in East Meadow, Long Island, I drove down the entrance ramp to the Meadowbrook Parkway. I was listening to "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" and thinking about my last physics class, which focused on driving on banked curves.

Out of nowhere, something dark flashed by in my peripheral vision. I was about to leave the ramp and get into the entrance lane when another car, attempting to exit, tried to cut me off.

I heard a thud, and my parents' little white 1990 Honda Prelude began to fishtail. I remembered my dad telling me to turn into the skid without slamming on the brakes.

But my car was out of control. It swung to the left, the front slamming the passenger side of a Buick in the second lane.

I continued to spin. Coming out of the 360-degree spin to the left, I slammed into the cement barrier that divides the opposing lanes of traffic. The nose of my car flew off and landed at least 100 feet down the parkway. The car stopped, and so did my screaming.

I looked up and saw a car coming straight at me at full speed. I could see the man and woman in the approaching Acura gesticulating wildly, mouths open.

"If I'm not dead right now, I will be in a moment," I thought. I did not scream; I was paralyzed with wide-eyed terror.

Somehow, the Acura that had been plugging along in the left lane managed to stop 10 feet from my car. They were then hit from behind by a couple who, I later learned, had married just two weeks before.

Miraculously, everyone in the four remaining cars was fine. The fifth car that initiated the accident was gone — the driver who side-swiped me never even stopped.

When I called my house, no one was home. I contacted my aunt, who sent my uncle. Within 10 minutes, state troopers arrived, just in time to witness another accident caused by rubbernecking 10 feet across the barrier.

When my uncle came, I wearily climbed into his car and waited in shock for my mother, who arrived right after the tow trucks had finished clearing the accident. After a tearful greeting, my mother told me she had brought a large envelope that had just come in the mail.

All of us have a story about how we found out we got into Princeton. Mine is that I almost did not find out. My uncle, a lawyer, had the presence of mind to bring a camera to photograph the accident. He therefore also had one as I was opening the envelope. I look like I'm yelling in surprise; my mom already has tears on her cheeks from before. I knew I should be happy, but I felt pretty numb.

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After I saw Fred Hargadon's "YES!" I closed the envelope, put it on the floor of the car, closed my eyes, leaned back and thought, "I am exhausted and alive," rather than, "I got into Princeton!" The car-window decal included in the acceptance letter was an ironic detail.

I've been reading the six-part 'Prince' series "Waiting at the Gate" about Early Decision candidates, and I actually have been hoping that the prospective students have not been reading it.

I cringe at the thought of those disappointed kids who will not get in. I can also imagine all those kids who get a "YES!" feeling like they are on top of the world for a little while. I don't necessarily envy never having felt that instantaneous euphoria.

When I opened my letter, I could not help but realize that, essentially, it did not matter that I had just gotten into Princeton. I had very little control over both my accident and my acceptance; getting in the way I did made me focus instead on the things I can control in life.

Anne Griffin '01 is an English major from Oceanside, N.Y.

'A Glimpse Within' is a weekly column in which we ask members of the Princeton community to share personal experiences. The 'Prince' welcomes submissions of about 650 words to The Newsroom.