A year is a long time...

A year ago today I was getting ready to take Olivia and chaperone our cheerleaders as we traveled to the first of three games towards the state tournament. As I was going to bed that night, the next day was going to be exciting and fun.

By the next morning my entire world changed. I just mis-stepped. I was moving too fast and lost my balance and fell. People fall all the time and they get right back up. I just fell. And then I realized that my leg was not really facing the right way. I was embarrassed and  people came over and started asking if I was ok, I just wanted to get up. So I tried. I put all my weight on my left knee to get up, and then I heard that sound that haunts me to this day. It was a crushing sound. Immediately I knew there was a problem. But at that point it was all surreal. People were swarming and asking me question, I was looking for someone to watch Olivia, I kept having to tell that officer my name, over and over again. As they carried me down the gymnasium steps to a gurney on the court, I was just so worried the players would see me and get distracted. And then I was taken to an ambulance. What?!? How in world did it become this big of a deal? I just fell. And they told me on the ambulance that they would straighten my leg at the hospital. So I did it, rather than dread it. I couldn't feel anything. It didn't even hurt. No big deal, right?!? I just needed an X-ray. It was dislocated, right? I tore a tendon??? no. I broke my kneecap (patella, I learned) in half, then shattered the bottom quarter (so that was the crushing sound) and tore away the patella tendon. I heard ACL, MCL.. everything was damaged, bruised, just not right. And so it began...

I could write a novel about the next 365 days... that is nothing anyone would want to read. Suffice it to say, it was horrible.

After a year, I look back and can see how this moment at the game has changed everything. Absolutely everything. There is not one area of my life that was not affected. And even with a year of perspective, I cannot see where anything good has come out of it. I am a different person now in so many ways and I cannot say any of it has made me better.

I spent days, weeks, months, lying around thinking there was something to learn from this. The lesson of gratitude, allowing others to help me, how important my health is, how lucky I am to have the people I have in my life... but I am anything but grateful, people get tired of helping, my health is hard to be excited about when I still cannot walk correctly or depend on my leg for strength or balance, and the people in my life as kind and well-intentioned as they may be) have no idea at all how big of a deal his STILL is to me.

I am not healed, mentally or physically, from this accident. I am damaged, depressed, and defeated. and I feel guilty that this anniversary is anything but something to celebrate. And I started to blog about it to purge these feelings and reassess my point of view, but I can't. I am not ready. I do not want to deal with any of this. I am angry and upset, still. A year is a long time... but not long enough...