On Getting Hit by a Bus.

I imagine that getting hit by a bus is similar to this feeling.

I’d imagine that once you are hit by a bus, you forget.
When you wake up, you have to be reminded that you were hit by that bus, and for the rest of that day, you mourn. You mourn for what bodily functions you have lost and for what physically visible alterations the bus did to you. You are overwhelmed with pain and have to be given medication to get through your day.

But then, at the end of the day, whether you took pain medications or not, you fall asleep.
And in your dreams you forget about the pain, you forget about what you look like and most of all you forget what a bus even is. You dream great dreams and in all of them, your legs are fully functioning.
Then eventually, you wake up again. And someone has to tell you that the bus didn’t stop.

And since you didn’t see that the bus wasn’t stopping, you stepped into the crosswalk. And since you stepped into that crosswalk, you are strapped onto a hospital bed.
And you had forgot all of this.

So you have to mourn for your body all over again.

And guess what?

This keeps happening, day after day after day.

You become numb to the pain and you fall asleep, and then you wake up and have to be reminded over and over that your legs don’t work. That your heart is frail. That you are going to be in pain for a long time.

The doctors keep telling you that eventually you will heal, eventually you may walk again, eventually your heart won’t be so weak.

But that eventually is so far off. That eventually isn’t for a really long time.
And you have to keep taking your pain medication daily. You have to be reminded time and time again what happened.

Maybe you should have someone put signs up in your hospital room.
Because you did get hit by that bus, but something is not sticking with you that you cannot walk.
That you cannot dance.
And if you do start to dance, your legs won’t be familiar to you.
If you walk, you may wobble.

Every day you try to stand, but someone has to come help you.
They have to stand by you because they know that you will fall.

I imagine that getting hit by a bus is one of the most physically painful things anyone could ever experience. I imagine that getting hit by a bus shocks you, and makes you realize that things that you thought you were sure of, are not necessarily for sure.

Because nothing is, really.
So you remind yourself daily that you were hit by a bus.
And you wait to feel whole again.