It is possible to feel numb and extraordinarily alive at the same time. Yesterday, the message of “life,” a quite normal Easter theme, seemed to come alive to me in a way that it never has before. As I sat with my family on the beach at Sunrise Service and I stared off blankly out into the still waters, I couldn’t stop having flash-backs of my bike accident from Good Friday. I can still feel myself flipping in the air with thoughts flying faster through my head than the bags of mulch off the truck that were flying at me. The brain does amazing things when a trauma is happening, for I saw the world in slow-motion, all the while having a million thoughts about France, life, my bike, my family, and death. It was a frighteningly beautiful experience.
I find myself in the afterglow of my second close-to-death experience in life, and I am overwhelmed at yet another chance to live my life to the fullest. Two years ago, after my first experience, I changed a lot about my living, my thinking, my priorities, and my love for others, and it took me getting second taste of death to reawaken me from any onset complacency of living. On Friday I walked away from the hospital practically unscathed (aside from some ligament tears, knee pain, deep bruising and back pain) from an accident that could have and should have taken my life.
Everyday we are given an incredible opportunity for LIFE. We must not waste this, for you never know when it might be taken away. I do not want to live my life with any regrets, anyone unloved in my path, or any joy that I could have expressed left bottled up. It’s time to turn the facet of life on in our lives and start really, really living as if today is our last day alive, or as if we were just given a fresh take on life by surviving the unexpected. There is a very distinct difference between just living and living alive.
I am bubbling over with eagerness to run out into the world and life more vibrantly than I ever have before, unfortunately though, for now, as my body heals, my run may look more like a hobbled walk. Nonetheless, world, here I come.
Live alive.