A Reset.

I try to live with the self-awareness that nothing is forever, that everything you may have planned or had been prepared for can be gone at a moment’s notice.

I’ve been playing in my head how I’d write about what the last few days have been like. You’d think that nearly four years of writing here would give me the perspective or capacity to explain how being effectively resigned to taking a quarter away from school for a serious knee injury. But I don’t. All I know is how I feel about all of this. That’s seemingly the one thing I do feel like I have at least some sort of grasp on.

I’m depressed. I’m exhausted. I’m in pain. I’m sad. I’m a mix and blend of all of that. But I think the one thing I feel the most is fear. I can’t lie to myself and not be afraid of everything that seemingly has been complicated by this setback that I don’t want to act is solely marginal. I’m afraid of rehabbing and going through physical therapy. I’m afraid of missing so much of what I love about life. I’m afraid about missing my home, Chicago, and all of the incredible people that make this place what it is. I’m afraid of not being present enough for the people I truly care about every day and in the way I know I should be.

I’m in a hazy, dark place. But as someone close to me has pushed me to emphasize, I have to look at the upside. I cannot make it through the next four months as myself without thinking about how what I can make out of this pretty frustrating situation. I’ll be free to dive more time to support my org and put more time into that. I’ll be able to hopefully do even more journalism than I’d planned during the school year. I’ll be able to read more and just write about everything happening in my life more intimately. I’ll be around family for longer than I’d ever planned, and I get to spend the next few months with my BFF Lucky (best dog ever).

But the key thing here is I’m trying to be optimistic. I’m trying to be positive. But I’m struggling a lot to keep it up. Even when I feel like I’ve been practicing hope and been actively attempting to be the person I usually am that’s trying to keep the mood up, I’m failing. I’m at odds with my own worst fears about life just getting postponed out of an accident, even if I had no control over it. But I think it’s pretty fair and honest for me to recognize that things could have been so much worse…