back from reality

so i’m finally back from my winter break.  i know i’ve been gone from tumblr for over a month and a half so i’m surprised that i still have any followers at all.  thanks guys! : D

this break has actually been pretty tough so here’s me sharing a bit “too much” of my personal life.

my flight was due in new york dec 19th, but due to a huge blizzard in the east coast, all the flights to ny were canceled and the earliest i could reschedule for was dec 22.  that morning i had called my mom to let her know that i’d be leaving on schedule and she told me that she was just heading out to go buy fresh food to cook for me (like most moms she felt that i was eating nothing but ramen at school—only 60% true).  when i got on the flight about an hour later, my aunt called to tell me that my mom and little brother had gotten into a car accident. she didn’t know how my mom or little brother was, only the hospital that they were in…and so my imagination became my enemy.

i thought of how i had felt about my mom my whole life—someone i loved out of obligation.  she was never around during my childhood when i loved her more than anything, and because of that i denied her for part of my life—rebelled through silence.  and now, i’m somewhere in between.  i understand why she couldn’t be a mother to me, but because of that we are just respectful strangers tied together by blood.

and yet, the tears would not stop.

it was a really stressful two weeks after i got to ny.  my mom was in surgery for over 8 hours…a car had swerved into her lane, knocking her car over the the left and then flipping over across the highway.  luckily her major injury was her left arm which broke throw the side window and dragged across the asphalt.  the cartilage was completely scrapped away and she’s missing a piece of bone from her elbow so basically, she can’t use her left arm at all.  the trauma surgeon had said her arm looked like spaghetti.

she’s getting surgery in a few weeks and hopefully after a lot of therapy, she will be able to regain some function.  she is strong.  until then she’s wearing this monstrous heavy metal contraption with pins that go into her bones to hold them in place. my little brother, was completely unharmed which is a miracle because he was in a car seat right behind my mom—his side of the window wasn’t even cracked.  children, sometimes really are invincible.  : ]

from this experience, i think i finally understood how fragile humans are.  we’re so easily broken.  but somehow, the will to live, for yourself or for those you love, is strong enough sometimes, to make you cling on to life.

is there an afterlife?  maybe.  but all i know is this one life that i have. if there is anything gained from this accident, it is the motivation to live as true to myself as possible.