FEBRUARy 10, 2020

Everything changes so suddenly, so forcefully, so dramatically — like the gusts of wind howling at my window right now, taking the Bay Area by storm today, thrashing my hair outside earlier tonight. My body and brain continue to shock me with what/when/where/why/how they respond in the face of trauma, triggers, tumult, trying times. The accident physically broke pieces of me and rattled all, injuries have wreaked depths of havoc I didn’t know possible, healing continues to be the most infuriating journey with endlessly complex challenges, heretofore unresolved issues and shocking extents of damage. No part of me escaped unscathed, thus each element is in flux and attempting to navigate its own non-linear, unpredictable, inexplicable recovery process. This is hyper personal, yet also mysterious and foreign… like late tonight, when paralyzing pain and terrors arrived with gale-force winds, seemingly out of no where. You may never know what it took to get me back to this bed, what is required to persist ongoing, what I am fighting through, against and for — what any of us are enduring. But we are. I am. And I am trying so so hard just to BE HERE — working consciously, summoning strength, practicing gratitude, employing massive effort, having talks with myself, taking medicines, utilizing various techniques, and valuing each precious moment, while seeking to make it through to the next and beyond. I need to be strong tomorrow, and although nothing about recovery can be reduced to ‘mind over matter,’ I am going to tap into all of the resources I possess or can summon to strive toward that humble goal when I wake. I need to be strong… I will be strong… I am strong, stronger than I knew… and we shall see where that school of thought leads, after what will hopefully be at least a few hours of sleep, often unfortunately compromised amid persistent and disruptive pain. At times, it seems as if my health were subject to some random external force of nature that propels or destroys at whim, other times I feel like I am in control at the helm of the sailboat, forecasting, steering and using the changing winds to my advantage. Such are the rough waters of human existence, especially amid prolonged medical recovery. I pray that I made the right choice today, in at least one instant and hopefully many others as well. And I pray that I continue to make the choices that best serve my own body and mind, serve others in the ways and to the degrees they deserve, and serve the world at large and humanity as a whole — for that is why I am on this earth. Nothing is calm, all is wind, but even in the face of unthinkable head-on blows, I am still somehow here. And fighting to stay standing, stay afloat, stay. Period. Because the winds are bound to change one day.