In reply to Erin:
so, chat: here's the deal. when you survive real trauma, everyone will tell you how lucky you are and how God must really have something special planned for you and how you should just feel blessed and grateful and happy that you're alive.
and, sure, maybe that's true.
(except I hate the "God saved you because he has a plan for you" bit--like anyone needs the extra pressure of being some messed up kind of Chosen One who has to do something pretty spectacular to justify not dying, and oh, by the way, people who didn't make it? well, God couldn't figure out what to do with you soo... sorry about that.)
but it doesn't make it easier or more comfortable. and the fact that in a split second your life ended, the one you knew and understood and had spent a lifetime getting used to, is bigger than the injuries sometimes, and it can be the part that is hardest to recover from. it's the part you don't get back, the thing that is broken beyond all repair, and it's the thing that no one will ever, ever mourn as much as you do. they can't; it wasn't their life. in fact, in an unfair twist, the better you do and the more you create a new normal for yourself, the more people will assume everything IS back to normal for you.
that you're the same person you used to be.
what they won't realize is that you were shattered into a million pieces. you aren't putting yourself back together, you're creating a new self. and as overwhelming and brutal and painful as it has been and is and will be, it may also be the part about which you are the most proud. you will know how much courage it has taken, and how you've never gotten a day off in your fight to continue the work, and how every day you have to choose to get to the end of that day.
obviously, I'm projecting a little here. I can't help it; my accident defines so much of me, and I'm constantly trying to figure out how to let it be a part of who I am and not all that I am. so often I want to tell people that the reason I seem better is because I have and continue to work my ass off to appear that way. that as happy as I am that I look like I'm "normal" to them, they don't live in my life and know how much I struggle at and with everything. how hard stupid, stupid things are. how terrifying it is to have lost my independence. how humbled and embarrassed and vulnerable I feel all the time. how angry that makes me. how lonely it is.
I read a post on another blog that was one of the loveliest, most succinct ways of talking about what it actually feels like when life ends and starts again. it made my heart stop a little when I read it, and when it started again, I had to tell you. no one wants to be in the broken club, but when someone finally gets a part of what it feels like right, it can't help but make your heart sing a little. to yell with relief, "THAT! THAT is what this feels like, THAT is how messy this is! it isn't all a happy ever after end of story just because I lived!"
and if you’re in the same club, I have to tell you, because what we go through can be so, so lonely. and even though I can't share what you're feeling with you, I want you to know that I know how lonely it can be. and how strong you are in the middle of it. and how loved you are by everyone around it.
including me.
xoxo,
beth
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