“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.”

— Oscar Wilde

After the accident, I came to the realization that life, truly, is short. It can be snatched away in an instant. The world we choose to live in and the way we move through the world. Altered without warning. One day we are here, the next day we are there. No choice. The only choice is to deal. To survive. To learn to live again.

In those first few days and months. I knew. I knew the meaning to life. I knew the little things did not matter. That many of the things we cling to are not real. Most of our life. Our choices. Our decisions. Illusions.

Life. There was a pureness to it. In those first days in the hospital, I knew the meaning of it. I knew, when I saw Chris in the ER. When he was wheeled into recovery after the surgery. When he stood for the first time. When we stood on the patio, accepting the warmth the sun offered us. As Chris walked, using only a cane, two weeks later, out of the hospital. While I drove the motorhome down that lonely highway. When I held my kids in my arms after being away from them for too long. I knew it. I knew exactly how life was to be lived and how to live it.

But as the days wore on, and the human world worked its way back in. The knowing slowly slipped away. I made decisions. Choices. To not live life in a pure way. I let the fear creep back in. The bills started to worry me. The closed doors chipped at my confidence. The turned backs made me feel angry. Bitter. And slowly. A day at a time. With each decision I made, I allowed the world back in.

It is different now, though. Because I was shown. In those first few days. When I sat beside my broken husband, who was still somehow alive. When I held my children, knowing their health and happiness was all that truly mattered in the world. I knew it. If you have never been in that space, you will not understand. Not really. Not in that way. When you know that you would give up everything. Money. Status. The illusions. You would let it all slip away. Slip away without a second thought. If it only meant your loved ones were allowed to stay with you. Even just a little bit longer.

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream, because every second of the search is an encounter with God and with eternity” — Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Yet, I find myself here. Caught up in the ridiculousness of living. Caring what people think. Worrying about money. Not living the life I want to live. Somehow, we have found ourselves on a bit of a wheel. We run and we run and we run, yet it feels as though we are getting nowhere.

This summer, on a bit of a whim, Chris and I decided to pack up our family and take a month long vacation in the Yukon. It was the best and the worst thing we have done in a long time. The best in the way it reminded me this is the way to live. In the moment. Enjoying one another’s company. Remembering life is an adventure. We should live it. The worst in the way that it brought that feeling back. Even if just for a moment. And now I don’t want to go back to living life half alive.

Last year, I could not have taken this journey. My fears were too great back then. This year, I made a choice to choose life. For three weeks of the vacation, Chris was away in camp. Working hard. The kids and I, well, we had an adventure. Some days were tough. Some days I asked myself what the heck I was doing. Hauling the kids around. Living in the space of others. Friends who welcomed us into their homes without even a week’s notice. Facing the fears I had spent the past four years building up. Conquering them one day at a time.

The things I learned this summer. They go well with those I learned after the accident: sometimes, the best thing in the world is to be stuck in a vehicle for hours on end with the people we love. Sometimes the scariest fears are the easiest ones to conquer, if we can just look them in the face and deal with them head on. We are breakable, but we don’t usually break. If we look for adventure, adventure will find us. Sometimes compassion and caring comes from places we least expect. Don’t give up on humanity, there truly are amazing people out there. We just have to find them. Living life is the only way to live.

So, tell me. How do I fit myself back into the box? The box we have been told to live in our whole lives. The one we know we don’t belong in, but we stay in because we don’t know any other way. The box we teach our children will bring them peace and happiness, though it has never meant that for us.

The accident. The moment I learned the box is nothing but an illusion. It is not real. It is self imposed and it is not necessary. Money. It does not make us happy. It might afford us certain freedoms, but happiness is not one of those freedoms. Status. Feeding our ego. The approval of others. Fickle. True happiness. Well, it comes from the heart. It lives there. We all know, with each beat, what will fulfill us. Yet somehow we continue on. In that way. The way we have been taught. I have to admit, though. With everything I have learned. I am still figuring out how to live outside of the box.