Yesterday, I was sick in bed all day so I was able to watch everything on TV from Maury’s Baby Daddy drama to “Dirty Jobs.” I was able to catch an episode of MTV’s True Life “I am deaf” and this one moved me. It was an episode where a teenage boy gets a cochlear implant and gets to hear for the very first time. It demonstrated the difficulties of communication between the hearing and the hearing-impaired. The boy gets to that age where he is ready to bridge that gap by undergoing surgery. He wants to have a regular relationship with his new hearing girlfriend. Four weeks after the implant is placed, they turn it on. He becomes amazed and overwhelmed with the sounds all around him. His parents cry the first time he is able to hear their voices. The sound of his girlfriend saying his name,“Christopher,” sends chills down his spine. He begins to explore his surroundings, tapping and knocking on everything. It will still take him a few years before he will be able to understand what people are saying and he is just happy to have the opportunity to hear them at all.
It really got me thinking about how much we take for granted. Life is so precious. We are so busy with the hustle and bustle that we forget the beautiful things that surround us, or the important people in our lives. Back in 2000, I was in a horrible river-rafting accident and had to be airlifted to the UC Davis Trauma Center. I was unable to feel my legs for several days. As I laid there for 4 days paralyzed from the waist down, I began to think back to all those years that I complained about my legs, “too skinny,” “too white,” “too muscular,” “too flabby,”....etc. I felt selfish that I took for granted the fact that I had any legs at all. Some people are born without them, some lose them. How could I be so vain? I told myself that if I was ever able to walk again, I would never complain about my body, or take life for granted. I would live each day as though it was my last.
It has been 8 years since that accident. I still suffered from horrible chronic back pain daily from the accident and just accepted the fact that I would have to live everyday in pain. That was the life I had known since I was 8. (In 1986, I was in a bad car accident and suffered muscular strain, the accident in 2000 only made my pain more intense and some days unbearable.) CrossFit saved me. Since Chris has been coaching me, the pain has disappeared. No exaggeration, it has changed my life. I feel like a kid again. At 30, I feel reborn. As I type this, teardrops are falling on the keyboard.
I sometimes forget the promise I made to myself. Stories like the teenage boy’s help me to remember. I hope my story helps you to take a step back and realize that life is too short to waste stressing out all the time. If you have learned anything after reading this, I hope it is that you will love yourself, love life and never forget to stop and smell the roses.
