There was an excitement leading up to August, more so than a usual birthday. I was turning 27. I felt ready to say good riddance to 26. It was a year that had started out pretty nicely, having gotten engaged a few months into it. But then I quickly found myself in Hell and battling for my life in various ways. I so desperately wanted to put this stage of my life behind me. I wanted to disassociate myself from this period in my life, and moving into the next year of my life felt like a necessary step in that process.
My family decided to celebrate my sister and I's birthdays more than typically. We spent a weekend away together. We travelled, laughed and had a great time together. The last day of the weekend was my actual birthday. I was happy, or so I thought. In the last few hours with my family before heading home there was a sudden shift in my mood. There was a tightness in my chest that hadn't been there all weekend. I tried to push it down and enjoy the day. That night I was sitting on the couch watching tv with Matt. He was talking, saying something about what was playing on the screen. I sat in silence, staring at the screen but not paying attention to what was happening. The tightness had progressed to a crushing weight on my chest, and a voice repeated over and over again in my head.
"You're 27, you shouldn't be 27. You should have died at 26. There is no reason why you're alive. You're not suppose to be here."
I started sobbing uncontrollably. Matt was obviously concerned, asking me continuously what was wrong. All I could say was "I don't know, if I understood it I would tell you." I started to think about what this day would have been like for my family if I hadn't survived, what they would be doing. It hit me like a truck I didn't see speeding down the road. A day I should have been happy to get to was full of guilt and dread.
Why did I survive? If someone else had gone through what I had, they would be dead. I should be dead, there was no logic to why I survived and recovered as well as I did. My surgeon told me so. She was sure I would die, and yet I didn't. So what made me so special to have survived the unsurvivable? NOTHING. It was a lot of luck. The luck of having encountered a special group of doctors at each critical moment. If it had been a different doctor in the ER that day or a different surgeon called as I hemorrhaged, that might have been the final straw to break the camel's back.
NOT WORTHY, is the feeling I have frequently. I'm living on borrowed time in my eyes, and I still don't know why. So I'll never stop trying to make sure the universe knows that I'll try and make this extra time worth while. I'll pay it forward as much as I can. And I hope to make 27 a much better year than 26 was. Getting married is a big event slotted for this year.