Plot Twist

Nine months ago, I made an unfortunate choice in footwear as I dressed for work, and six hours later I was on my ass in the parking lot outside the office - mortified, terrified, and emotionally paralyzed. 

With a great deal of grit, I managed to get onto my feet, but quickly realized one of them was badly injured and I couldn't walk on it. The office was several hundred feet away, and there was no way I could hobble anywhere, so I just stood there, looking around, having no idea what to do.

Then someone who worked in a nearby building came along and went to fetch my office-mates. And as they came out to help, I still wondered what the hell had just happened. All I knew was that my foot had come out of that stupid damn shoe and gravity took care of the rest (imagine, if you will, something akin to a marionette ballet). And now that foot was swelling rapidly, pulsing with pain, and giving rise to panic. This had happened before - another injury, many years before, and I suddenly went stupid, completely unable to make a decision about what to do next.

Fortunately my co-workers had their wits about them, and one of them took me to a free-standing ER just down the road. I could have chosen to go to the other location on the north end of town, or I could have opted to go to the actual hospital, but I chose this one.

I had no idea that choice would change my life. 

I met a woman who worked with the University of Florida Arts in Medicine - she was visiting patients with an offer to play something for them on her guitar. She sang a beautiful rendition of Nora Jones' "Come Away With Me" and something inside me started to buzz. Some part of me that had been entertaining the idea of learning to play guitar was activated, but I brushed it off - because hello, I kind of had more pressing things to worry about (like how bad was the injury? How much was this stupid accident going to cost me? Would I be able to take my much-anticipated Colorado vacation in two weeks?). 

This lovely songstress stepped away for a bit but returned to sing another song for me (Miranda Lambert's "The House That Built Me"), and that part of me I'd just silenced started buzzing again, and this time I couldn't stop the words from coming out of my mouth. I shared with this perfect stranger a desire I didn't realize I'd had, and since I figured I'd never see her again it was okay to just be open about it. She smiled and told me to check out a page on Facebook - a group for and by women who sing and play guitar. We chatted some more, and when the Bringer of Pain (the person whose job it was to wrap my foot in a soft cast) came to ruin my day, this beautiful stranger slipped away again. 

I found the page on Facebook when I got home, joined the group, and forgot all about it. I was too busy bemoaning my fate to think about that chance meeting, or that part of me that really wanted to learn to play guitar.

I spent weeks trying to figure out what the lesson in all of this was. Was I supposed to learn to accept that I'm alone and I have to figure shit out (like how to get dressed, go to the bathroom, get off the couch, all while using only one leg) on my own? Was I supposed to learn how to ask for and accept help from others? Was it another form of self-sabotage -- an excuse not to get myself together and get active again? Or was it just a cruel twist of fate that put me in those stupid shoes that morning?

Turns out, it was none of the above. 

In the last two months, it's become clear to me that this accident wasn't about teaching me something (not directly, anyway). It was about putting me on a path. It was about finding the clarity I'd been chasing for years. It was about finding the people who would change me and my life in ways I'd never imagined possible.

That Facebook group got me into my very first guitar class, and in that class I met some truly phenomenal women, a few of whom have had a profound effect on me. They've changed how I see myself, how I see the world, how I see the power that I hold and don't use. They've led me to a place where I can break through barricades I've been putting up for myself my entire life; to a place where I have the courage to do some of the hardest self-work imaginable because I know on the other side is freedom. 

I've got both feet planted on that path now, and things are changing quickly. I have the clarity that's seemed, for ages, just out of my reach. I know where I'm going, and I know how to get there. 

And the cute but very heavy and dangerous sandals I put on last June turned out to be the best choice I could have made.