10th Anniversary - Living After Surviving

Celebration of Life

Today is my ten-year challenge. It’s been ten years since my car accident in Australia, and I’m not sure how to feel about this fact. This waiting game we’re all playing right now couldn’t feel more familiar though. It reminds me of laying in this hospital bed for one month with anxiety and questions about my future. I look at this photo of me as a hot mess and at my absolute worst, remembering how heavy those bandages and splints weighed, and yet I can’t help but notice I’m somehow still smiling for the camera. Why? I’m pretty sure not only because my brother probably told me to say cheese, but also because I already knew at that time that life moves on. I knew I could lay there and complain all I wanted, about my derailed plans and why this happened to me, but that’d be selfish and it wouldn’t help at the end of each day. I’d still have my battle wounds to face. Of course, that’s not to say I didn’t have bad days. Because after this photo was taken, I’d have four years dedicated to a total of eleven exhausting surgeries and weekly hand therapy. But now at the ten-year mark, I’m living independently (something everyone questioned at some point), and doing vinyasa flows (yoga) with permanently injured hands. This decade taught me about RESILIENCE more than anything - how I have to accept what I can’t change, trust in patience, discover what I can do now, focus on my own path against what others hint, and always know how grateful I am, that I could’ve easily died. Let’s just say I’d rather “vinyasa“ flow with my own life’s timing to heal, grow, and be happy than rush on some master timeline for inauthenticity and unhappiness. With that said, I recently began a blog to share these thoughts. A BIG thank you to those who wholeheartedly only lit up these past years with positivity, support, and encouragement, including my AMAZING heroes of doctors and therapists. Living after surviving to the next decade. ❤️CHU #mystory

•