On...

When I imagined writing this blog (after I wrote last year's) I figured it would be positive and filled with all the good things that have happened this year and since the accident, filled with all the gratitude I feel. Spoiler alert - like most of 2020, it’s not going to be one bit like I expected.   I know I should feel grateful. And I do - that I survived the accident, that I have few physical side effects, that I have few mental side effects. Emily is healthy and doing well. I am grateful.   And, this year has been hard. 2020, in many ways, has been more difficult than 2013. But, to heal from my accident, I had mostly just to focus on myself and my progress. My family sheltered me and allowed me to leave the responsibilities that now weigh heavily upon my shoulders so that I could keep my attention on healing. I was allowed to have tunnel vision in 2013.  And, as Emily put it, every step of progress was a celebration.  Now, not so much. In this seventh year of healing and survi

I took Environmental Science during my senior year of high school. I had dropped out of AP Physics because... well... physics. I still needed a science credit. So, there I was.  It was a much better class than it had gotten credit for.  I was seated next to a kid named CJ. I’ve since lost track of CJ, but I loved sitting next to him. I looked forward to that class every day. CJ was kind, funny, and smart. Most people (teachers) didn’t think he was smart because his grades were terrible. I figured out after a week or so that his grades were terrible because he could never find his classwork and homework to turn it in. He always did it. He just lost it from one day to the next. As a result, he got zeros for all that work he did and lost. I became the keeper of CJ’s environmental science work. To me, it was a small way I could positively impact someone I cared about. Everyday when work was being collected, I would take his out and hand it to him. He would turn it in and receive credit for

This is a very difficult moment in time. It isn't that I haven't had other challenging times. Most of you know that I have. This is different. This is a moment where I know that I am not the only one going through a hard time. Whereas past struggles have been mine, this is the world's. This is a global issue - I am not isolated in my feelings. And yet, I feel so very alone. Recovery from my accident was different than this... I never felt alone and I had some control over my circumstances. My family and friends were always close by - my mom lived at the hospital and my friends and other family visited daily. And, I knew that I could get better if I worked hard. I was never without hope or drive. With the current global crisis, my family and friends cannot be close by and I have absolutely no control over the circumstances. I do not control whether or not my children go to school or if I can go to the movies, a restaurant, see my friends, hug my parents, my brother a