Anniversaries

3/4/96 at 7 p.m. the car accident that changed my life occurred.  For years, I would be depressed around this date.  For the past few years, I remember what happened on that cold March evening, but not with sadness.  For most people who have had a traumatic event in their life, whether it be the death of a loved one, an accident or a diagnosis, certain feelings come up surrounding that anniversary.  Many get angry all over again, others get depressed and others choose not to let this affect them year after year.  Life altering events cause us to grieve.  We grieve for what could have been.  We are angry that it happened to us.  If you go full circle in the grieving cycle, you finally come to acceptance.  Acceptance in no way means that you roll over and give into the disease, accident or diagnosis.  Acceptance is what you need to do to move on with your life.

Believe it or not, wonderful things can come out of a tragedy.  I was once asked to write down all of the positive experiences that I have had since my accident.  Believe it or not, there are many:

• I learned how strong of a person I am
• I have met wonderful supportive people who I never would have met without having CRPS
• I have been able to put the skills that I have learned through nursing, to help people who otherwise may not have had access to that information 
• I feel that my girls are more compassionate and caring women that perhaps they would have been
• I learned that many of my friends, were not true friends because they drifted away after my diagnosis and yet there are friends who have hung in with me for the past 17 years.  I know that they are truly my friend.
• I feel like there is a reason that this all happened to me because I am able to help others who have not lived with this disease as long as I can.

So I celebrate today.  I have learned over the years to pace myself, to choose what is the most important things and do them knowing  that the next date I would pay for it with a higher pain level.  There are some things that are worth doing even though you know that you will over do it.

Over the years, I've wondered if the 19 year old who hit me even remembers this day.  I seriously doubt it. There is no way that she could know the events that followed that accident.  She has no way of knowing the years of pain and anguish that that accident caused me to have.  She was simply a 19 year old headed towards an intersection on her way to a date, who made a mistake and hit my car while she was making a left turn.  We are all human. We all make mistakes. It just so happened that her mistake caused a huge impact on my life.  She had no way of knowing that.  I will always remember her name, but I'm sure that she doesn't remember mine.  That's ok because I'm ok.