Everyone has a scar, whether it is physical or emotional. Every single scar has a story. Maybe it’s from falling as a child and scraping your knee, maybe it’s from a sporting accident or a surgery, and maybe it’s from the loss of a loved one or a breakup. My scar is almost impossible to see unless my hair is up at a certain angle and you are squinting with everything you’ve got at the back of my head. Maybe you will catch a glimpse of it. But, even though most people can't see it and don’t know about it, it is the scar that completely changed my life.
Moments before the scar, the accident, the blink of an eye that shifted everything, I was peaceful and cruising down the street on a longboard. Something I had done a million times. But this time, everything was different. I crashed going down a hill, a hill I had conquered too confidently many times before. This time, I was bleeding uncontrollably out of my head. For the record, I have been told many stories of the incident as I do not remember the time after hitting the ground. What I do know is that I was in the Intensive Care Unit for a while. My parents were told that they had two options: Either I would be dead, or paralyzed and basically a vegetable. All of this was unknown to me as I opened my eyes in the hospital bed and felt stitches running down the entire left side of my head. What happened? Where was I? Why was everyone crying? I was so confused and lost and yet I was alive. That is a miracle that I will never comprehend completely. I was functional, I was not paralyzed and my brain was still working at a high capacity. Yes, it took me back to the impulse control and emotional filter of a 10-year-old while I was actually 18 years old for a while, but I was still functioning.
It was challenging to graduate high school, to attend classes and to explain why I kept falling over and passing out to everyone. It was difficult to read, to write, to sing, to play piano, even to walk and to run. It was almost impossible to determine if I would be able to do all of these things very well again. I couldn’t control my emotions for a long time and my memory was absolutely terrible. When I was tired or hungry, I couldn’t process information, I would sometimes be unable to walk, and I was extremely silly. But I was alive. I am alive. Through lots of brain training and therapy, healing and time, I have become a much more highly functioning individual. And for that, I am extremely blessed.
But the purpose of this article is not simply just to tell my story. There’s a bigger message here. Honestly, there are a hundred messages that I could link to my scars. The first being that every individual’s story is so important and we really have no idea why they act and say the things they do until we get to know them. Heck, people thought that something was wrong with me and that I was constantly intoxicated at night time because of my lack of ability to function correctly when I was tired. But that was not the true case. And no one would know this unless they got to know my story. The second link might sound cliché. Take it as you will. But it is carved into my heart and into my head from that day forward. I am blessed. I am breathing. I can run, walk, laugh and dance. And there is nothing that I did to deserve these things or to take them for granted.
March 17, 2013, marks the day of my accident and this week marks the three-year anniversary of my miracle. Thank you for reading my story. I hope it inspires you to try to understand the scars of those around you.
