Be Bigger Than Your Fear

As you may have noticed, I'm spending a lot of time on social media.  I have a lot of time.  I troll the internet and catch up on what all of you are doing since I'm seeing less of people in person these days.

When I'm not online, I spend time in my head thinking about the accident, where I am in the recovery process and what I will do with myself when I'm healed.  I have big plans for this phase of life.  But, for now, in the limbo between crash and wholeness, there is this space; this ether that is largely dominated by fear.

One of the many selfies I am taking these days; I think I need a new hobby.
Orange is the New Black marathon??? 

One of the benefits of being a busy person is that it pushes your fear to the side.  Busyness refuses to let fear be felt. You don't have the luxury of time to be self-indulgent in your thoughts.  You're focused on what you have to do, what others need and your daily plan for accomplishing it all.  Before the accident, my life was an automated cycle of "what does Bryan need?" "what do the kids need and where do I have to take them?" "what do I have to get done for my clients today?" and "when am I going to work out (and run all my other errands)?"

Now, without these regular distractions, I'm left with my thoughts, which I've found are surprisingly less optimistic than I often perceive myself to be.

I'm afraid of a lot these days:

That my legs won't work
This is an irrational fear, I know.  I even walked after the accident - with five breaks and a dislocated foot - to the side of the road to get out of my smoking car.  But, despite walking and having not one shred of medical evidence to imply otherwise, I am afraid that when I am asked to take that first step - still weeks away - that I won't be able to do it.  It's very weird not putting any weight on your feet for months at a time.  I haven't walked in four weeks. And, there is this negative, naysaying part of my head that says I won't walk again.  Fear.

That my friends will move on without me
I know this is totally irrational. My friends have been an amazing support system, bringing me meals, running errands for me, taking my kids for afternoons on end and checking in every day to see if I want Starbucks.  But, at the end of the day, immobility is isolating.  The view from the floor is only shared with my one dog and two cats.  And they can't go to Starbucks.  I'm alone.

Throwback to friends many years ago. They've all done more for me than I can say

That my husband will tire of this ridiculous situation
I am, of course, not giving him any of the credit he deserves by feeling this way, but I do feel this way.  There are things I now require that I will not ask my mother or my friends. These are the thankless tasks saved for my husband. And they're not glamorous or fun.  So while I watch other families' vacations on Facebook, I am very aware that we are not that couple. At least not this year.

That my kids will explode after one more request to fill my water glass
My kids have really stepped up in the past month.  They do their laundry, they unload and load the dishwasher, and fulfill myriad requests all day for Advil, water, coffee, the remote, my laptop, etc.  Hand in hand with all of this is our cancelled summer vacation, our cancelled long weekend to Chicago to celebrate Sophie's eighth grade graduation, and our cancelled trip out east to see One Direction.  Yes, all these plans are gone and I've had to ask my kids to handle it with grace and with understanding.  It's a lot to ask kids. But I asked. So I sort of suck.

My girls and me enjoying Jeni's ice cream last summer. 

Gabe enjoying the beach he isn't going to.

I know the rebuttal to all my fears - I will walk; my friends are there; my family loves me and wants me to heal; I know all this is true. But that's the funny thing about fear - it ignores what's true and feeds on what's not.

I am not sharing this with you because I think what I am experiencing is unique.  I am sharing it because I find what I'm going through to be extraordinarily common.  My accident is merely shining a light on what I, and others, go through all the time as human beings.  We must be bigger than our fears.  We must make our decisions based on hope and our dreams.  Fear cannot be fed.

So, I will not shrink in this situation.  I will move as much as I am physically able to.  I will get out of my house.  I will do as much for myself as I can. I will be thankful that my upper body was not injured because I use it everyday to get around. I will appreciate sitting outside on the deck with my kids because that's the extent of our travels this summer. I will love every Starbucks, every call, every kind gesture that I receive. And when I ask my kids for anything, I will say thank you. Because I am so very thankful.

I read a quote recently that says, "We all have two lives. The second one starts when we realize that we only have one."  I am thankful to have started my second life.  And, I will not be afraid of it. I will embrace it and go confidently in the direction of my dreams.  I owe this to everyone around me, and to myself - as we all do.

Amen.

Who Am I?

Day by day, as I lay on the couch, sit on the couch, move to a chair, crawl up the stairs, and crawl back down, the layers of who I think I am are peeled away.

Being unable to walk is unnerving for anyone, and especially for a woman whose defining characteristic is "busy".  I hear this all the time - "you are so busy" "I don't know how you do it" "do you ever sit down?" In fact, I've heard it so much that I fear I wear it like a badge of honor - I am a busy woman. People respect me for the way I multitask. Others wish they could juggle what I juggle.  

So what happens?  In an instant, I am stripped of the very thing that defines me.  I am no longer busy.  I am, in fact, stuck in sludge, unable to get up, forced to watch life proceed around me, holding up my hand in the back of the class as if to say, "wait, what just happened? what did I miss?" It fills me with a nervousness that hits in waves. At one moment I am fine; the next I am in a panic about how I will find my way back to myself.  But, as we all know, there is no going back. So, I move forward toward myself, yet to be defined by what lies ahead.

The irony of this is not lost on me.  I know that I have been "handed" this immobility because it will force me to get to the core of who I am. Without my calendar to keep and my meetings to attend and my errands to run, I am forced to ask the question - who am I?  Really. WHO AM I? The answer to this is an uncomfortable, "I don't know."

I have been thinking about this question a lot.  My first answer was, "I am a mother."  But even that has shifted these last 10 days.  My children have stepped up in a way fitting of how I hoped I had raised them. They are doing laundry, washing dishes, bringing me everything I need.  In fact, they've stepped up so well that it's made me feel slightly irrelevant.  Sort of like an old typewriter that you love but don't really need.  I know my children need me.  But, watching them take care of me has made me realize they don't need me in the same ways anymore.  They are older and more responsible than I give them credit for. So I am a mother in transition.

I am a wife. But, not in the ways I've been a wife for nearly 20 years.  I am not making Bryan coffee in the morning. I am not getting newspaper so it's ready for him when he comes downstairs.  I am not cooking dinner for my family. I am at the mercy of my home versus running my home.  My home has always been my haven and a reflection of my love for my family.  Now, I watch Bryan and others move through each room, trying to do what they know I would do and make things look the way they know I like them.  The love I feel through these actions is nearly crippling.

Having all these earthly trappings we equate with power and purpose and identity and control stripped from me very suddenly made me realize that none of us is any of the things we think we are.  I need to uncover who I am in spite of being busy, or being a mom or being a wife.

Underneath it all, who am I?

All I know is that I don't know. But I have six weeks (and the rest of my life) to figure it out.

Negative Space

Often times, the degree to which we measure anything - events, people, our possessions -  is equally about what they are not as much as what they are.  It's the absence of something that makes us appreciate what we have.  It's what we miss that gives value to what is in front of us. And it is what could have happened that gives context to what actually occurs.  This is negative space.  The simplest way to describe it is as "space where other things are not present." In design, it gives the eye a place to rest.  In life, it gives us perspective.

For the past five days, I am haunted by negative space.  To be specific, the negative space of my children not being with me the day of my accident.  Much worse than reliving the crash in my mind is reliving the image of a crash where Sophie had been in the front seat and where Gabe and Sara, both less than 100 pounds, had been in the back. This is a crash I cannot bear. My mind runs from it, and it feels more real in my heart than what actually happened.

But luckily for me and for my family, my kids were not with me. I was alone, surrounded by negative space.

I've spent most of my time since the crash thinking about what this accident is intended to teach me. Because it is meant to teach me something.  It's not about broken ankles or reliving that moment. It's about what is beyond the short-term and pushing toward the long-term, life altering changes I will take with me into the rest of my days.

Negative space is one of those long-term lessons.

I will be thankful for when I and others are at their best because I know what it is like to just get by.
I will love the daylight because I know night.
I will relish silence because I have lived in noise.
I will cherish my health because I know a broken body.
I will never wish away my days because I now know the value of them.
I chose to focus on the positive because it's easy to sink into negativity.
I will listen because it's too easy to shut others off.
I will always open my arms because I have been guilty of staying closed.
I will be patient because impatience puts up walls.

And I will walk again, and run, and never take for granted the places my legs can and will take me, because now they cannot. This, too, is negative space I will push through.

I am not thinking of surgeries, or casts, or being couch bound.  I have a vision in my head of me, running a 5K, wearing great shoes, chasing my kids, stronger than I was before the accident, being even better because trial reveals us. It uncovers who we are. And I refuse to have any trial reveal that I am less than what I know I am capable of.

I am surrounded by what is, and thoughts of what is not. And, I am focused on what will be. Because it will be great. This I know.

Me and the three not there.