Back in early 2016 I had a medical emergency I never saw coming and had something happen to me that resulted in my having to take early retirement. Though I am thankful it wasn’t permanent retirement to the grave.
The event? My brain blew a gasket.
The event so powerful, I lost three days of my life and woke up in hospital wondering what the hell had happened. I can’t say I was scared at the time because I had no real idea of what happened or any memories of those lost days. I just woke up. A fact I am forever grateful for.
That medical emergency took me out for a whole year. I was laid up not really able to do much for a good few months. And then, slowly, bit by bit, I got back on my feet and tried to think about nothing else than what I was doing that day, and what I could look forward to on any given day from there on in. I didn’t make plans, but I did give myself goals to work towards. Milestones that, if I just made it to this day or that week, or this month, I was going to be alright.
I never saw this event coming. No one did. Least of all my doctor. And before the event I had no interest in retiring not that, at the time, I was working for either the man or myself. But I still had those options open to me. But the before and the after are so very different on so many levels. Of who I was, what I could do, where I could go, and how life was for me afterwards.
Change happens. Life changes … a lot. It’s how we deal with it at the time that determines what happens next, and how we cope going forward. I guess I’ve always been more of an optimist than a pessimist. And always preferred to look forward to the future, and what might be, than dig around and wallow in the past. Yes, I know the past informs us of who we are and where we’ve come from, we can’t dismiss that. But I’d rather not dwell on what’s happened in my life. It’s fact. It cannot be changed, it’s immutable. The future on the other hand, is pliable, stretchy, unfixed, mutable, and is ever and always changing. I like that.
It’s what got me through a few dark moment, and propelled me forward each and every day, and has done so ever since that fateful evening when my brain went off the deep end.
Now I find myself a retiree with my days free to do what I want, when I want, how I want, to a certain degree. And while my brain might have had an electronics failure, I have, ever since that moment, been able to be more creative than I have ever been before. I’ve read more, listened more, enjoyed more, and been present in the moment more than at any other moment in my life.
2016 became the year everything changed, including me.
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
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