My Fall to the Ground

There’s something interesting about getting back up on your feet… a person has a light bulb turn on above their head with the realization of, “Oh okay, I’m ready.”

I still think to myself – how miraculously did I decide to just continue on with my life after the accident as if nothing happened? To notice where I left off before the accident – my goals, aspirations – and trail on with achieving them? As if I took a crazy deadly detour yet now I’m right back on track – all good here!

I just suffered a massive tragedy. I lost hand function. I lost joints. I lost muscle. I lost nerves. I lost skin. I lost education abroad. I lost new explorations. I lost new friendships. I lost time and what was supposed to be – dreams said goodbye to me before I could even say hello!

I remember being in my hospital bed, unable to move an inch or else something would hurt. So I lied completely still while observing my static situation.

My brain was burning with scenarios, questions, and thoughts whenever I stared at my puffy bruised hands filled with pins coming in and out of it.

Like how? What the hell? And what now?

Simply put in how I felt and what you can easily imagine: getting hit by a bus and surviving it.

Have you ever felt that way? Totally blind-sided?

Yeah, I didn’t know what was going to happen next. Was I to be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life? Would I need a caretaker for the rest of my life? Was I not able to work and create my own career and money?

I was pretty set on the fact that my life lost its full value – what I knew of it and what I had planned for it.

But here’s the remedy: TIME.

Allow me to explain…

Time is Your Best Friend

We all overthink in our minds and agree to thought impulses at the very moment, especially in high stake moments, as if this is the only time we have, which is certainly true too since additional time isn’t promised.

But since there is such a thing called “the unknown,” we as human beings decide to make up our own “known” in order to ease our anxiety and waiting. “Answers NOW,” we tell ourselves.

Those overthinking crazy thoughts and scenarios became my numbing medicine. While I was accepting my fate, I was actually being completely patient.

I felt like I was now impervious to pain, chaos, and trauma – how more rock bottom can I go? There’s nothing I can do or worry about, so let me cruise. I wasn’t negative yet I wasn’t positive either. I was neutral cruising – going with the flow.

But then I started living and realized that, “Wait, I can do things now that I couldn’t do before. It’s like magic that my muscles just started working again; I can move this finger now. Oh, I can put up my hair in a ponytail with both hands; I just have to do it this way now. And oh, I just made a fast turn with the steering wheel by doing this hand motion.”

It was all subconsciously happening – the brain and body working together. Walking hand in hand with time, just strolling along.

I guess you can say the numbness wasn’t masking hope or denial; oddly, it was strengthening the acceptance. I relied on time to heal me one way or another without even knowing it or to make me into this adaptable evolving person for natural human survival.

No light bulb above my head, just a process of acceptance and being okay with it.

How’s that for an interesting yet poetic segue to getting back up on your feet and say, “Oh okay, I’m ready.”

If this was confusing, I’m sorry! I’ll probably revisit this topic again later, but for now, just know that time is always on your side no matter what; it’s not an enemy, even if it’s “time” for bad things to happen, because time still ticks on as long as life still moves on.

xo, CHU