Broken plans

Not that much time has passed. 3 weeks. 3 weeks. I had hoped so much for these 3 weeks, and for a longer time after too. I was a very different person 3 weeks ago. Not a completely different person, but I was someone who could go to the toilet by myself. Who could stand, and walk And I had such different plans, too. I was inspired, fascinated by the possibilities and the places that I could go to, by the things that I could see, and learn. What were these things, I did not know. Regardless, I was fascinated.

Then all of these plans, along with many bones in my body, were smashed and broken in one moment. In no more than a few seconds. One driver’s slip of attention, one bike that was neither slower nor faster than it was – had it been, it might have just avoided the collision; one road that just happened to lack a shoulder for the bike to ride on, a cyclist’s ideal a little too dangerous: they all coincided at that one moment when the cyclist was broken. A quick transfer of unmeasured momentum, too much for the cyclist’s stability, accelerated him too much, and he and his extremities crashed onto everything at once: onto his bike, the car, the cold air, the rough road, onto his own flailing, senseless self.

One gift helmet kept the cyclist’s head intact. One big grey backpack took the blow that would’ve cracked the cyclist’s neck and spine instead, that would’ve changed today’s scenario widely. From a hospital to a graveyard, from family’s care to mourning. From surgeries to ceremonies, from pain to oblivion.

I wonder if I ever had a choice, during those brief moments while my body was being crumpled and my mind shut itself down. Did I ever decide, in a near-death-experience, “I refuse to be stopped here! I will get up and move on!”? Given my injuries (mostly extremity traumas), probably not, but so little could've changed my state. A butterfly could’ve saved me, could’ve killed me. But it did neither. Maybe it got distracted by the colorful leaves of Autumn, confusing them for flowers. Or maybe it didn’t like me.

Whatif’s aside, the crash broke my left tibia, my right ankle, my right humerus, my left shoulder blade, ribs 2 & 4 on my right side, and a hipbone. Seeing as this is not something that happens every day (at least not to me), I think it is a worthy activity to record the main occurrences of my journey back to a minimally assumed healthy body capability on some kind of media. I’ve got some pictures, and I’ve got memories, so I’d like to start my journal here.