On Another Path.

Coming to terms with reality, with your new reality, takes a considerable amount of time.

After the most difficult and challenging week of my life, I just am in this weird mindset. Yes, I feel utterly drained and kinda empty in an instance, But on the other hand, I’m getting another foreign feeling: closure. No, this is not just about the recent passing of my Abaye, my grandmother. I think about a much more different kind of closure; the end of whatever chapter of life I’m on.

As I spent my first week after surgery in bed, contemplating my morality as I felt betrayed by my limb, I don’t know how going through such an excruciating experience wouldn’t affect the trajectory of life. Maybe it’s in realizing the extent of physical and mental pain I could make it through. Maybe it’s the realization that in some moments, there is nothing those who care for you can do to mitigate what you’re dealing with. But maybe it’s also just the immediate numbness, the incapacity to know what is next for me.

But I never really was alone. I feel like that’s disingenuous to state. I had countless family check-in, friends constantly reaching out, and my brother around. I had parents who, amidst their obligations, stopped everything to keep me going. Even if they were not present immediately, they were with me in spirit, in constant reassurance of my capacity to make it through these…