Two Years Later…

You know in books, or movies when they fast forward in time and have a little line that says “Six months later,” or “1 year older?” That’s almost how it feels now, as though we’ve fast forwarded past the accident. Sure, there are lasting effects, there always will be, but we’ve moved into a season, and with that, new adventures. Time moves on, no matter how much we want it to slow down.

Two years. As I type this, it’s just a few hours away from being 2 years since the accident. As you read this, it already has been two years. I’m starting this post the day before to give myself time to write it. Most of the time, I’m ok. Life has slowly returned to “normal” or at least as close to normal as it will get for us, whatever normal is anyways. And then I have moments when it hits me about what’s happened, what we’ve been through, and I need a little time to regroup and pull myself back together and move forward. But I think that’s all just a part of the process.

Last year, I wrote about the Adventure. You can find that post here, along with a link where I talk about the accident and what happened:

——————————————–What Would Life Be Without Adventure?———————————————

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Sometimes I look at photos of the accident, or photos I took of myself in the hospital, and it feels almost surreal. There were moments when I wondered how I would ever survive, how I pulled through despite everything that happened. But there is a plan and purpose that we don’t always understand.

And now, here we are. Two years later. This year, we wrapped up one season of our lives and moved on to the next. Like any good story though, what happened in previous seasons will always stay with us and sometimes, it may even come back around. This year, I continued recovering from a major accident, returned to teaching and landed a new position that I love ,which allows me to work from home, and we got a new puppy. I completed NaNoWriMo again this year, and wrote quite a bit, all things considered, in a book series I’m working on. On the downside, Ben’s health continued to get worse , he had cataract surgery, and my dad ended up in the hospital for over a week due to an infection. It’s been another roller coaster year. Sometimes it feels like every year is.

We are in a story far greater than anything we could have ever written ourselves. Like every great story, there are ups and downs, there is danger and adventure. Two years ago today our lives changed, in a few seconds time. Nothing will ever really be the same again, but how can it be? We are not the same. Like any well-written story, our lives are no different. We grow. We change. Through the trials , when we keep on keeping on, we become better and stronger, more of who we were meant to be. The 2022 season of our lives wasn’t an easy one, but I’m sure life never really gets easier. We get stronger. We learn how to cope, how to deal better with what’s thrown at us. I know for me at least, my faith has grown stronger as well. I’m not who I was 2 years ago. I will never be that person again. And that’s ok. Somehow I think that’s how it’s meant to be.

Two years ago, we started off on an adventure that should have been happy and fun. It quickly became dangerous, painful and tough. Yet through all of it, we clung to our faith in God and to the promise that there will be a better tomorrow, even if it’s not this side of Heaven. Along this journey, we’ve found we are never alone, and that sometimes what happens to us isn’t about just us. I’ve had people tell me they don’t understand me. They don’t understand how I can still rejoice and be so joyful when so much has happened, so much has been lost. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, and I do have tough days, sometimes really tough days, but I try to keep my eyes focused on what lies beyond this life, not just the here and now. That’s what matters most in the end.

As 2022 comes to close, I look back on the past 2 years and try to give myself a moment to realize how far I’ve come, and how much we’ve been through. But I don’t stay there. For there is much to look forward to in the future, and work that still needs to be done. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, I’ll do a post on goals for the coming year, and what we’re focusing on next. I’ll leave you with some photos from 2020, quotes and scripture that have come to mean a lot to me, and photos from this past year. And with that, the 2022 Season comes to an end….