It's weird when you live through a situation you shouldn't have. I'm 22, and I've lived through two accidents which have resulted in injuries to some pretty serious parts of my body. I couldn't think without my noggin' and couldn't type with out my spinal cord intact anywhere from the thoracic spine and up, so I guess I'm pretty lucky. Well, really lucky. I recently lost a friend to an accident frighteningly similar to my first one. I almost feel like I'm mocking him by saying my first, like I'm putting notches in my belt. Or, I'm in a bar conversation competing with strangers on who's tickled injury and death more.
"Dude, I broke my leg when my raft flipped over."
"Psh. I broke all my ribs AND punctured a lung when my motorcycle slid!"
"I had a massive head injury and broke my pelvis eight years ago when I was hit by a car."
"Oh yea!? Well..."
"I'm not done. Three months ago I broke my neck in one place and my back in two places."
The crowd goes silent.
I should be dead. I've been told time and time again how lucky I am, and how God has been watching over me. These things I don't doubt. However, that doesn't change how surreal it feels. One minute, I'm 14 years old, thinking about orange juice and crossing the street to get to the bus stop. The next, I'm in ICU in a head trauma unit, begging to be able to take a piss and to be taken off the hospital bed.
I have no memory of this. My mom told me later. I was on a lot of pain meds, which probably was a really good all things considered. I was in the hospital for nearly five weeks, and had the whole rigamarole of treatments: physical therapy for the fractured pelvis, occupational therapy for the head injury ("Can you look up this number in a phone book? GOOD! Can you dial it? GREAT! Now, can you ask the person if they have a CD of a band you like in stock? AWESOME!"), vitamin E rubdowns for the road rash, how-to lessons with crutches...
All I wanted was to go home. I was stick of the hospital bed. I was sick of the hospital food. I wanted to go back to school. I wanted to see my friends. I had no real understanding of how serious my injuries were, or how lucky I was to be in the hospital and not the morgue. I was 14, I was untouchable. There's something very neanderthalish about teenage thinking--I am teen, I am indestructible. When I look back, I feel very ungrateful. Then again, I think that if I had a little bit of that innocence now, that idea that I could live forever, I wouldn't be so bent out of shape about what it means to be alive. More on that later.
So, eight years pass and I'm as good as can be. No withstanding problems from the injuries, except that I was exempt from all contact sports for PE in high school (YES!), and I had to get a CT scan every six months until the blood clot in my head dissipated. It took a few years, but it eventually said its farewells. I was free to do any sort of head-bonking activity I pleased, as long as it didn't involve cars, I figured I was okay.
Well, I didn't relish any head-bonking activities from 2001-2009, unless you count forgetting to close a kitchen cabinet and standing up into it. Or, having a box of Olive Garden To-Go! soup bowls fall on you in the supply basement. I graduated high school, went on to college, and did my college thing. I studied, I partied, I worked, I tried new things, I tried new people. It was a free for all in life choices, and I picked whatever sounded the most interesting. Throw a superhero party and go as Captain Communist? Why not?! Power hour of Arrogant Bastard with the roommates? I'm down. Fly to Portland and hook up with an internet friend? Sure. Dabble in the drug culture? Sounds like a plan. Fly to New York and explore the City alone? Absolutely. Forrest Gump said, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get." I thought, "Life is like a bag of Jellybeans. You never know what flavor you'll like unless you try it." So, I tried what I could, threw out what I didn't like, and savored the ones I loved.
There's something really gratifying about saying, "Fuck you" to convention and living on the fly. You're always in the moment. You always have a good story to tell your friends. There's never a dull time in your life. However, it lacks stability and longevity. After a long night of whateverthehellIdecidedtodo, I would lie in bed and think, "What's the point? Where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to do? Why am I here?" The nightly Q&A usually rested on an inebriated mind, which led to some interesting answers to say the least. My innocence had left, the idea that I am indestructible, gone. I had no one real to turn to and nothing solid to put my feet on. Fear overwhelmed my life, mostly a fear of sickness and death. Which, now, I think is really ironic. I feared sickness and death, but had no idea what I was living for. Some (even a part of me, admittedly) argue that the moment is enough to live for. Yea, that's fine in whateverIdecidetodo land, but it leaves you lonely and scared at night. There's no rock when the tide changes. What do you hold onto when you're being swept away?
On September 14, 2009. I needed that rock. Something in the physical world to hold onto, to roll around my head while I was still here on solid, albeit wet and soggy, ground. A stamp I'd left somewhere. An impression on someone's mind, perhaps. If I died, I needed a friend who would be forever left uncomforted, a hand who would be left unheld, a heart that would be left broken. I wanted to be important enough to someone that they remembered me forever. In hindsight, it sounds selfish, but I think that's something everyone wants: to be remembered, lovingly, by those who mean the most to you.
...More later. I'm tired.
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