Awesome.

I used to be awesome.
...or so I thought.

Above average brains, quick in humor and wit; a perfectionist at heart and pretty overall fearless (or oblivious...whatever). 

Then I got bumped.  Again.

The first time was in high school - Powder Puff football.  NOTHING sugar and spice about those girls!  I got plowed. Hard! Full-on tackle by a chick three-times my size that knocked me off my feet; my head bouncing off the ground in whip-lash action.  I blacked-out and woke up with a swarm of people around me asking twenty questions.  The hospital sent me home that night with a killer headache and no chance for sleep, as my mother woke me up every thirty minutes to make sure I hadn't drifted off permanently.

The next (and  hopefully last) time was just this past year.  I realized tonight that I hadn't written about it - and now notice a huge gap in my posts; not altogether a suprise as, if you haven't noticed, I'm not the most disciplined blogger in the world.  I don't talk about this topic much and honestly, I don't remember quite a few details.  The effects; however, are a constant and haunting reminder.

My husband and I were in an auto accident this past March.

The weather was unusually cold and icy for that time of year.  We were driving on an interstate that, I later learned, had been shut down earlier that morning due to a rush hour pile-up.  I was playing solitaire on my Blackberry from the passenger seat with my feet propped up on the dashboard, taking on my usual stance as the co-pilot in the Explorer.  We had purchased the SUV after my last accident 7 years ago; a road rage incident that left me terrified to drive anything without a birds eye view of the road and a brush guard attached to ensure I could wipe out anything that ever got in my way again.  It was a solid and fairly custom piece of machinery.

It all happened in the blink of an eye.  We hit a patch of black ice.  My husband screamed for me to brace myself and reached out to hold me in my seat much like a mother's instinct to a child.  We spun out of control, slamming into a concrete barrier blocking us from plummeting over a bridge.  Airbags deployed.  I was catapulted out of my high-back bucket seat, through the cab and expelled out - not through the hatchback (that would be too easy!), but through the small tempered glass panel flanking either back side.

Seatbelts people.  Seatbelts.

Exit Window

I remember floating in the air inside the vehicle.  Slow motion.  I remember my head striking something hard.  The sound of metal and glass...and skull.  Then nothing. 

My mind wandered to the comforting smell of my late grandfather's aftershave, whom had passed away just a few years prior.  I felt the same protection and security I did when being held in his lap as a young child watching the evening news together. I remember drifting away, as I would drift off to sleep in his lap.

I woke up, suddenly and with jolted pain, just like I did on the high school football field nearly twenty years ago - a circle of people (angels really) asking me too many questions and telling me I would be OK.  I searched for, and managed to focus on my husband's shocked expression to assure him of the same.  "I am OK. I'll be fine."

To this day I can't imagine his panic after the accident, reaching over to check on me after his own spinning stopped only to find my seat empty. To find me laying in a massive pool of bright red blood, stark against the white of snow and ice beneath me. To find me stiff with one arm reaching to the heavens refusing to relax back down to my side - back down to Earth. It was months before he would not wake up in the middle of the night and reach over to my side of the bed, playing the scene over in his nightmares that jarred him awake to make sure I had not vanished. To make sure I was still by his side...forever.

I was rushed to KU Med Center and treated by their amazing head trauma unit staff.  My noggin was stapled back together and I was fitted with a boot and some crutches to help me walk on some banged up ankles.  That's it!

I later found out that I landed at the side of the road, out of the way of traffic...on the ONLY patch of soft snow within miles as if God has reached down from the heavens to catch me and lay me gently down on the pure white pillow.  A nurse, an EMT and a preacher had been following us on the highway and stopped to help.  They stayed with my shaken husband until I was moved to a private room.

What does this have to do with my self proclaimed awesomeness?

I sustained a severe concussion.  A traumatic brain injury (TBI). While most of my obvious symptoms have disappeared and the visible signs have healed, I am left...bumped...both inside and out.  I often feel sharp 'shoots' of electrical sensations across the back of my head, swelling and tightness is a common occurrence, as well as forgetfulness, unorganized thought, roadblocks in verbal communication both spoken and written and an overall feeling of disorientation or time loss/lapse.  

I am no longer awesome and it is more and more apparent in my current employment - where it's my JOB to BE awesome.  I made a mistake today.  The same kind that I often do these days.  The kind that is becoming harder and harder to ignore.  I find myself wondering sometimes, "What if somebody notices? What if they all realize I'm no longer smart? What if they are onto me?!?!"

I can only keep fighting this new 'disability' and work harder and harder to overcome.  And while I AM working harder and struggling...and making more mistakes...I will REJOICE and be GLAD IN IT.  

While I used to think that it was me that was awesome, the truth is, this whole year has been a reminder that GOD is awesome!  And no matter how far I think I have fallen off of my self-serving pedestal, my ego of awesomeness, He will reach down out of the heavens to catch me and gently lay me down into the pure white snow. I only have to reach up.