My Backiversary: Reflecting on the Event of a Lifetime (Revisited)

I've been avoiding writing about a certain topic. It's going to be heavy. And embarrassing too, honestly. I don't want to write about it, but I have to. Otherwise, I won't be able to keep moving forward as a human, keep evolving. I won't be able to continue down my road of healing without getting some of this out of my system. Not sure where this will end up, but I've gotta jump in with both feet. I need to write about my drinking issues. And my drinking issues all started with the event of a lifetime. I wrote the article below in October 2024. It's the background to everything since, my drinking, my divorce, my relationships, my mental health. The beginning of my end, and the end of my beginning. Keep tissues handy.

On October 8th, 2016, I broke my back. Specifically, my L1 vertebra.

The details of how don't matter. The short version is that I fell. It was an accident. That's all you're going to get in way of explanation of how it happened. Deal with it.

What it did though is change my life completely. 100% almost everything, as the 'event of a lifetime' tends to do. It was such a significant thing for me that I celebrate it every year since in some way or another. I call it my backiversary. It's a day I reflect on how far I've come, or not as the case may be, and to be grateful that things could've been worse.

To back up, pun intended!, physically I was very lucky. I didn't have to have surgery. I was just stuck in a VERY uncomfortable back brace for several months. At first, I couldn't move very well, as you can imagine. I needed help to shower, change my clothes, and do anything around the house, and I couldn't work. I slept in a rented hospital bed in my living room because I needed a super hard bed to sleep on and it was higher than a regular bed so easier to get in and out of.

As I healed and the pain mostly subsided, I started back to work part-time, standing up at the office kitchen table, and I got really good at picking things up with my feet. Ha! After four or five months or so, life went back to normal. Well, a new normal as I had some new things to deal with.

Physically, I am in constant pain. Most of the time it's just a dull ache, but if I overdo it or let my back muscles get lazy, it gets really intense. Luckily I only have 30% disc space loss. I have to be STUPID SUPER careful of any future falls as now I am 'at risk' for further injury. And throughout this ordeal, I found out that I had osteopenia (pre-osteoporosis) and a severe vitamin D deficiency. Both have been rectified now, but it was good to find out about them early to be able to deal with them.

Psychologically, I now have an intense, over-the-top, almost out of control fear of falling. I won't do anything wherein I might fall, biking, rollerblading or skating, skiing, horseback or motorcycle riding, etc. No FUCKING way. It's very debilitating.

Situationally, I had to take a hard look at my life during this whole ordeal. The way my ex treated me while I was recovering said VOLUMES about his true personality and lack of empathy or support for me. I had been blind to it before, but it was quite obvious after. He was more worried about how my injury affected him, rather than supporting me in a way that was meaningful to me.

I also looked at my friend group. Believe it or not, I was highly involved in a pretty right of center church. And I thought they would help me recover, be concerned I was gone, check up on me, etc. Nope. After the first week, crickets. I felt completely abandoned. I have absolutely no problem religion. What I have a problem with is people and how they preach one thing and do another. But me and God, we're still tight.

So all of this started me questioning everything, literally everything about my life. My job, my choice in houses and cars, my likes and dislikes, hobbies and obsessions, sexuality, eating habits. Literally EVERYTHING was put through a magnifying glass, dissected, and analyzed. I learned sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much about myself. The only thing that stayed constant and true were my kiddos, and down the road, my grandkiddos. They kept me sane and moving forward. Without them, I'm not sure if I would have made it. They kept me alive, no doubt about it.

Emotionally, I was a wreck. I should've gotten into counseling immediately after the accident, but I didn't, and it cost me precious time and wasted brain cells. Everything kept evolving and evolving and evolving, and it was hard to keep up. I started distancing myself from my ex without even realizing I was doing it. And I explored parts of myself that you're supposed to explore early in life to figure out. Everything was so raw, like someone rubbing steel wool on my burnt, open flesh. I didn't know who I was anymore, and trying to figure it out alone was daunting and scary.

Financially, fuck… I almost don't want to talk about it. It was depressing how little of a settlement I got. Almost half went to the lawyer, over 1/3 went to paying off bills I'd accumulated over the months, and I got around $20K, for a life-changing, body-altering, who knows how this will affect me long-term injury. UGH

What's the point of this brief trip down memory lane, reflecting on the event of a lifetime, you might ask? Hell. That's what I was asking myself earlier today after writing most of this. I've never really made a list of how my injury affected me, but apparently it did in so many, many ways. I've dealt with them all as individual pieces, but writing them all out here, damn, it's a lot. More than I realized. And I'm sure I've forgotten plenty. My life is so much better in many ways, and at the same time, a lot of things have been taken away from me. It's an intense feeling. A mixed bag of emotions, for sure.

I think the point is this: it's good to look back and assess sometimes. How is my life different from what it was yesterday, last week, last month, last year, and even further back? How have I changed, for better or for worse? What new things can I focus my attention on that serve me well, and what things can I shed? What do I still need to work on? Who can I rely on, and who do I need to release from my life? Contemplation of life's journey thus far, for the purposes of personal growth, is a very good thing indeed. I just can't set up camp and live there.

So there you have it. No super-deep revelation or silly turn of phrase to end on. Just going to be grateful for where I've been, excited about where I am going, and fully revel in all the life still to live in between.

Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/close-up-photo-of-brown-bone-co597efdV7A?utm_content=creditShareLink&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash