Ten years. Ten long years. What a long time of living- especially as a 22-year-old. Let's look back at how my life looked then. 10 years ago, I had just moved to Chrisman as a 7th grader. I was playing on the school basketball team as the worst player in existence if you doubt that ask my old teammates. haha. I was still dealing with the drama in everyday life of my parents' divorce. I was the skinniest kid ever. I was really concerned with how other people thought of me. I thought I knew everything and would regularly correct my teachers during class. Yeah, I was that annoying kid.

Also, 10 years ago today- November 3, 2007- was the day that my life permanently changed. One of my greatest passions a decade ago was riding horses. I was completely obsessed. I was most concerned with how I could convince my family to let me go ride my Grandpa Dale's horses. On this date, I was riding a new horse and I got bucked off. I broke my neck.

It was a major question then of wondering if I would survive. If I would be able to walk. If I would be able to function in society. But my first concern was getting scars on my head from my HALO brace. What a typical young teenage girl thought process. On Christmas Eve in 2007, I lost this HALO when it fell off of my head. Now I can literally say that I lost my halo- how angelic of me. I spent over a year and a half in a variety of neck braces. I had complications that made it worse than initially thought. I had my neck 131 degrees forward. I couldn't support my own head. I was in constant pain that is beyond description. My spinal cord was rubbing on my spine, making it completely unstable. This made it so I could have died at any point. I got my neck fused from my second vertebrae to my 6th on December 5, 2008. I had to be "homeschooled" by my grandma for most of my 8th-grade year because of how I couldn't handle being at school because of my neck. I say "homeschooled" in quotation marks because my grandma was basically my slave driver. She is such a nice lady, but if you need to do school work or focus on grades she can be pretty scary in the kindest way possible. Gotta love her. But I was able to get out of my neck brace right before I started high school, thankfully. 

The thing though that I focus on this anniversary is how much life I have been able to live since then. I was able to graduate high school and college on time. I have discovered many passions- theater, public speaking, singing, theology, truly investing in other people's lives, writing, drinking a lot of coffee, and so many more things. I discovered my other major passion of traveling and was able to move overseas- China. This event, though tragic, has changed me. There's no way it could change me. I deal with a lot of things in my day to day life because of this don't get me wrong. Things like chronic pain, the inability to turn my head, having to be aware of if certain activities would cause irreparable damage and the little things that I just adapt to in my life. But I mean, I ran a freaking half-marathon (without training I might add). I've done CrossFit. 

I've done so many cool things in the last 10 years, but it's always a good day for me to reflect. Most importantly, to thank God that I've been able to live the last decade by his grace, healing, and strength.