Chapter 49 - prologue

Thus far, my life can be divided into several well-defined chapters.  Most chapters are a consequence of choice.  They begin with deliberation, emotion, contemplation then a decision to take action - foolish or otherwise.  Such chapters unfold like adventures, the obstacles faced with willing anticipation.  Personal growth is the stated goal of these chapters.

Some chapters are a consequence of fate.  They begin with a crash-bang-boom out-of- nowhere gust of wind that sets life on a new trajectory in an unexpected instant.  Such chapters unfold like misfortunes, the tribulations begrudgingly overcome.  Personal growth is an inevitable outcome of these chapters.

Chapter 49 begins with a crash-bang-boom.  Literally.  On November 22nd, 2016, one day after my birthday, I was struck by a car while crossing the street at San Jose Airport.  My husband and I were returning from a highly emotional trip to Mexico, where we visited the crash-bang-boom staircase that launched a similar chapter 13 years ago.  Now, we can sit around and compare x-rays of the miraculous hardware that holds our respective leg-bones together.

It is usually quite obvious when the intentional chapters have concluded.  There is typically some sort of filing: you graduate and file for a diploma; or you file a change of address card as the moving van pulls away; or you file for unemployment because you got 'made redundant'. Again.  At any rate something happens that serves as a clear demarcation that the next chapter has begun.

With crash-bang-boom chapters, the endings are not always discernible.  Damage occurs in an instant, but healing is progressive, epic, often eternal.  You cannot file for a certificate of Completion of Grieving.  There is no ceremony to mark the moment you are 'over it', because that moment is fragile and fleeting and impermanent.  Even faded scars invoke the memory of pain and mended bones ache on cold rainy nights.  These chapters continue to write themselves indefinitely, a subtext that underlies the rest of the manuscript.

But Chapter 49 will have a distinct, unavoidable, expiration date of an ending.  Chapter 49 will be exactly 365 days.  Not that I expect to be 'over it', or back to 'normal', or fully 'healed', but because a far more daunting chapter begins at midnight on November 21st 2017.  I am not afraid to admit that I am afraid of what's to come.  And so I am going to take the time to savor this chapter, to indulge in myself, to invest in my body, to nourish my spirit, to gather courage, to build strength, to read, to write, and most of all, to dream.*



*and by that, I mean the kind of dreams where you imagine an amazing version of your self - like maybe you are successful novelist, living in a tower on a beach-front passion-fruit plantation -  not the kind of dreams where you are limping down the street wearing nothing but a wet towel and a homeless guy throws a giant meat fork at you...