Where To Begin?

Where to begin?

My left hand and wrist are healing fast. Shockingly fast. My left foot is still a question mark — I get it checked this week. Maybe they’ll pull the pins and finally tell me to start putting weight on it. That’s the signal I’m waiting for. That’s the moment I can go home, return to my own space, face my own stairs, and start rebuilding strength on the entire left side of my body.

That’s the moment the march back to normalcy truly starts.

This whole thing has been a goddamned whirlwind. The Subaru wiped my memory of the accident completely. I have no recollection of the week I spent in the ER. My first real memories begin with me lying in the ICU, and all I remember is pain — everywhere. There wasn’t a bone, muscle, or piece of tissue that didn’t ache. Movement came in tiny, deliberate increments. I wasn’t “moving” so much as flexing: wiggle a finger, bend an elbow, tighten a calf. Every action burned.

My brain was fogged-out, likely the TBI, but over time the haze began to lift. Slowly, I became myself again. Bit by bit. Humor returning. A smirk here, a grin there. Looking for golden moments, even as everything hurt. I came back to life in rehab — that’s where it really happened. That’s where I woke up as me again.

And in that space, I saw the best in people. I saw the worst in people. The universe blessed me and tested me simultaneously, as if God were preparing me for something I cannot yet see.

Now… I wait.
Somewhat impatiently.

Waiting has never been my strength. Patience might be a virtue, but it was never one I willingly exercised. But the military taught me how to wait, how to endure, how to let time do its necessary work. I can do it. I don’t like it, but I can.

My goals are simple and enormous at the same time:
First, become vertical again.
Walk.
Lift.
Function.
Become self-reliant.

Then: drive.

And eventually — the milestone that matters most — mount Aurora with confidence and ride again. I will ride again. I have to. That will be the moment I know I’m healed: when I roll into work on two wheels and walk confidently to my desk to take on the day.

That’s the vision I’m climbing back toward.

A dear friend of mine — a therapist, brutally honest and full of love — recently told me to watch out for signs of PTSD. It hadn’t even occurred to me. I don’t remember the accident, and yet the evidence of it gets inside me. When I saw my helmet and goggles at the hospital, it hit me harder than I was prepared for. Tears came fast, from some deep, instinctive place my brain doesn’t consciously remember but my body absolutely does.

Maybe that’s what trauma really is: memory woven into muscle, sinew, bone.

So what will it be like when I throw a leg over Aurora for the first time?
Will there be moments?
Will I flinch? Freeze in traffic?
God, I hope not.

I like to believe I won’t — but there’s no way to know, is there? These are the hidden costs of the crash. The invisible things that driver stole from me that day.

I know I’ll get through it. I’ve made one thing clear to the universe throughout my entire life: I march forward into the unknown. It’s simply what I do. But I have no roadmap for what this particular return will feel like. Will a car coming in from the left send a memory crashing back? Maybe. Will I push myself before I’m ready? Probably. That’s also what I do.

I haven’t really looked at my leathers yet — the jacket, the chaps, the vest. Maybe when I do, I’ll find resolve in them. Those pieces could have been my skin. Maybe bearing witness to that truth will give me strength.

Or maybe the return to normalcy — simple, quiet, ordinary normalcy — will be enough.

I know there's no point in overthinking any of this.

And yet here I am, overthinking everything.

Because that, too, is what I do.