Who Am I Now?

Hi all!

So, it's been a while. I promise I meant to keep up with this when I started, but life had other plans for me.

About 2 and a half months ago, I tore my ACL in a freak mosh pit accident in Champaign, Illinois, courtesy of The War Room, operated by my good friend Dhruv. You should go to one of their shows if you're ever in town.

Since then, I've crutched countless city blocks, cried more times in row than ever before, relearned how to walk, and believed I would die without telling my family I loved them-- all to be in a place worse than where I started. I cannot say writing has been at the forefront of my mind. I've oscillated between everything and nothing for months. I've felt the days pass through me at an alarming crawl that leaves me wondering where the hours went after spending the day counting the seconds down until it is finally over.

But I can't just do nothing with these feelings. So, I figured my grand return to blogging would be me trying to make sense of it all. I've had a lot of time to think, and I have a few questions that have been banging around in my head that I can't seem to find an answer for. Maybe writing them down will help. Maybe you can answer them for me. At the very least, this can be a capsule to this point in my life for if I ever feel masochistic enough to want to revisit it.

Last known moments of happiness before injury with Kaylee and Ike. The War Room, Champaign, IL.

What's the Point?

I am one of the least athletic people you will ever meet. I played basketball for the local park district when I was in elementary school. I averaged 2 points per season. I used to walk fast so I could get to my location as quick as possible just so I could sit down again. I'm usually winded and sweating by that point. I'm scared of the gym. I broke out into hives before playing volleyball with my friends back in February. I had to stop playing volleyball because my forearms hurt too much. All this to say, I have no interest in sports or fitness whatsoever. So, why was I blessed with one of the most common sports injuries? I'm terrified of everything, I never do anything dangerous, and yet I'm the one this happens to. In a mere second, the trajectory of the next year of my life, at least, was irrevocably changed, and I can't seem to understand why.

There is no reason why. There is no point. I've heard the term "Everything happens for a reason" more times than I would have liked to. There's a certain romance in thinking that life is one big lesson, and each event is here to teach us a little piece of it, but that doesn't do it for me. What do I need to be taught? And why do I need to be taught in this way? I think the idea is that by the end of this, I'll have some grand realization that I am resilient, and I can do anything I put my mind to! But there's no world where I wouldn't make it through this by the end. I'm not going to lay down and die because life sucks right now. I didn't need to be taught that. Maybe the lesson is just that I need a gym membership, but if that's all I get out of this I'll be pretty pissed.

I do wish there was some greater plan, but the idea of something greater than me pulling those strings is more distressing than the idea that life is just bad sometimes. That bad things happen, and it's bad for a while because that's what it is, and then one day it's not anymore. Then, I have the power to make of this what I want it to be.

Post-learning how to walk again for the first time. Post-injury, pre-surgery. Skeeleemee apartment.

What Do I Do with This?

If my pain is pointless, for now at least, then what do I do with it for the time being? Every time I look at my laptop I get this swirling feeling in my stomach; this sand churning inside of me, reminding me of all I could be doing, should be doing, but just can't. I groan, shake my head and hobble away. If you know me, you know this is just about all I talk about, and you're probably rolling your eyes at the fact you have to hear about it from me again. There's this cycle inside of me whenever something is going on in my life where it's the only thing I can think about or talk about as much as I want to think or talk about anything else. I keep talking or writing, which makes me feel worse, so I talk and write and think and write and talk and with each revolution of the cycle I feel more and more anxious than when I started.

To be honest, this is the last thing I want to be writing about right now, but it's the only thing I can write about right now. I'm stuck on my ass, and I'm stuck in my thoughts, and I'll be held here for many more months against my own will. This is my attempt to "do something." I will not leave these thoughts and feelings behind; they will crutch, hobble, walk with me for a long time coming, but maybe they can change with me now as well.

Last hurrah before surgery. Thought this would be my last day on Earth before a tragic reaction to anesthesia. Arrigo Park.

The Eponymous Question, Who Am I Now?

In the trailing seconds after that stranger's body connected with mine, my entire identity was unknowingly stripped from me. I tried to push through the pain for a week; I ubered to class and made arrangements for assignments, but when my parents came to pick me up from my dorm that Friday night, I knew my semester was over. I withdrew from my classes the next week and sat in my basement trying to cling to any semblance of the life that I knew. All I think about is the future and how my schooling will shape it. And suddenly, I was no longer a student. The survey about shame I had been sending out just a week before did not matter. My amateur study of linguistics didn't matter. The essay I reviewed last Thursday did not matter. The thing that person said while I was working at the front desk did not matter. What happened at the bar last week, the stacks of books I had yet to read, the last album I listened to that actually made me feel something all did not matter. I became a degree of flexion, and a degree of extension. I became a circumference. I became the limp in my left leg. I became the weight I could tie around my ankle. I became the date when they could make this all better. I became an injury, and I have been ever since.

I want so desperately to be seen as anything but my current state. This may beg the question, "Why are you writing about it in the first place then?" To which I would answer: "Go read the last section again." The unfortunate truth is that I am just an injury, and I will be for a while. It is the most apparent thing about me, and it can't not be mentioned, talked about or thought about. I think my main hope is that, if you do know me, you don't lose sight of who you know me to be, and who I was before all of this; I'm not sure I know anymore.

Car ride home post-surgery. Back to square -1. Illinois Medical District.

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So that's where my head has been at recently. I hope you enjoyed my faux-intellectual, melodramatic ramblings about my life these past few months. I hope to continue blogging more regularly over the summer as I get better. I have an idea for a short story I will hopefully finish up and publish here soon. It came to me in a dream about a month ago.

I think it's really funny that I created this blog and its name to symbolize the incessant waiting I seem to do in life, only to be left waiting even longer for this all to be over. I'll try to find the strength to use this platform to make that waiting a bit more bearable.

-Sean

Brighter days to come. Emma's backyard.