I have my moments where I am overcome with sad thoughts and it happens at the same time every
year, though my accident was well in the past, I still experience the
psychological traumas of it.
It seems like on the
anniversary of it, I start reliving the bad experience from a distance. I start
getting sick; even to the point of paralysis where I cannot get out of my bed
or start experiencing all these pains in my body that hadn’t been there and
make me ail.
I often wonder if I should be
desensitized by the situation by now. I mean, my river of knowledge is far
beyond that night and time when my accident occurred. So much time has passed
and so many events have taken place and yet still, my near-death experience changed my whole entire world of limitless abundance and I am back to confusion, in a
frenzy and in tears, and paralysis masks my joy.
My uncle made me realize that
I am able to choose my response to life the day after it happened. While I was ready to stay in
bed crying and blaming myself about what happened and thinking of all the terrible
things that could have happened, including my head being cut off and my life coming
to a sudden end, he was ready to make me feel like life was still worth living. My mind tends to flirt with all the could have would haves and
then I feel depressed and sick and I stiffen in response to the memory on the
anniversary. Sometimes I wonder if I will be latched to this event forever. I
guess I am still seeking clarity of how something like that could have happened
to me. I even sometimes taste fear of driving, synchronous to the anniversary
date, on my tongue.
I realized through this entire
experience that if we dwell on dilemmas, we will never transcend the boundaries
of them. I realized that what was encountered happened and cannot be changed
because it is part of my history. I realized that it is unhealthy to live a
life blaming yourself for something that happened or might have happened when
it is well in the past and not my present reality. And I also realized that
with my story, I can inspire others and help others who might have
experienced something similar to me.
When I wrote the song, Enjoy
Life, it was based on this situation. I wanted to slip away and forget that
life still goes on regardless of what happened. The lyrics are based on my living,
breathing history telling myself that I can still enjoy life even though life
happened.
By releasing my thoughts onto paper, I made it justifiable for me to
move past it. And what made it even better for me was being able to get up on
stage on the anniversary of my accident, to tell people about it and to sing to
them my lyrics to “Enjoy Life” to let them know that it is okay to
embrace each day to the fullness of it, regardless of our situations.
