Smile…Though Your Heart Is Breaking

Uploading photos over the past couple weeks, I’ve gotten a few comments and messages saying how happy people were to see me with such a grin on my face in all my pictures. As if it somehow confirms for them that I’m *really* ok after everything.

One person commented “Wow that is a HUGE smile!“

The thing is, I’ve gotten the “What a great smile – you must have been very happy” for as long as I can remember. In college, one of my friends used to tell that you knew it was going to be a good day in our little Student Government offices when you walked in to Lord Hall and could hear my signature laugh from down the hallway. Course this laugh almost cost me what I thought was going to be a dream job in public relations and tourism (in hindsight I should have realized that my boss’ hesitance to hire me based on a loud and hearty laugh was spoke volumes to the working environment in the organization).

I know as a girl this is not always the most flattering thing. When I smile my eyes seem to squish in to my face and get all crinkled around the edges. If my spine is not perfectly aligned the veins and muscles in my neck pop out to look all weird. Plus, my smile is crooked anyways. My lower lip does this weird pull dip thing that was probably a result of my many street fights (or, you know, my baby sister breaking my nose and face 7 times before I was 20).

I enjoy being happy and it usually shows.

We can waste so much of life scowling or rolling our eyes or languishing in the rough and tumble parts of human existence. Heck, in 2011 I spent a majority of the first 9 months of the year with a dark cloud hovering over the deepest parts of my personality and psyche, desperately struggling to get the sparkle back in my life. Sadness and frustration are not exactly easy emotions to simply overcome and fight past.

The past eight weeks I’ve talked to a lot of people about the importance of a good attitude and how it can make or break your spirit and recovery when fighting illness and injury, especially in a foreign country.

It sounds cruel, but survivors laugh and play, and even in the most horrible situations–perhaps especially in those situations–they continue to laugh and play – Deep Survival by Laurance Gonzales (h/t Carlos Miceli for the excerpt find)

I was not always this shining beacon of positive optimism. And it is important to admit that, because it is important for us to acknowledge and embrace those imperfections that make us human.

The past two months of my life have been hard.

The posts I’ve written, while being informative and super “let’s do this!!” motivated, have not been the whole story. In my illness, injury, surgery, and recovery I’ve also:

• Laid in bed at 2:30 AM pleading with any spirit available to just let me sleep through the night and wake up alive the next morning. If I didn’t, please let my sister remember where all the documents are for her to come in to a landslide of money
• Felt a complete turning off of all emotion and rational thought while I lay on a stretcher in the emergency room and let Dan & Ian take over making all decisions for me
• Woken up from a surgery to remove some gauze and drains from my first surgery (after I specifically asked not to be put under fully-sedated anesthesia) alone in a hallway with a tube sewn in to my leg and no one around to explain what was going on
• Looked down at my stitched-up knee (WARNING – don’t click that link if you aren’t prepared to see a pretty messed up knee!) after my doctor unwrapped my bandages and proceeded in simultaneously crying hysterically and hyperventilating, which scared the crap out of the nurses assisting him.
• Texted my boss at 8 PM asking him to come back to the hospital and keep my company because after crying my way through half a box of tissues I was exhausted, broken, and did not want to be alone in a hospital room after my knee’s grand unveiling
• Called my Dad after getting released from the hospital to let him know what happened. Then got transferred to my sister where I proceeded in sobbing to her for approximately 7 minutes straight. Later that night I Skyped with both my parents and begged them to let me come home. My Dad told me no, unless I was willing and wanted to give up
• Stood in the kitchen one night with my friend Tom as we examined my knee and infection and swelling to determine ‘how bad it was’ and if the yellow puss emerging from one of the wounds was something I should be be worried about. Note – I was really worried about the yellow puss.
• Skyped with my parents again and told them I was moving home in August, that I couldn’t stand being in SE Asia, and I was never going to get on a motorbke again because the thought made me want to throw up in fear. They told me I needed to wait until I wasn’t so emotional and for the love of god get back on a motorbike BUT BE CAREFUL.
• Got my stitches out and went through the entire procedure with my hands covering my eyes singing “lalalalalalala” like a 4 year old because I was so mentally squeamish about the idea of 40+ stiches being strung out of my body
• Checked my forehead obsessively for fever (the first sign of my infection returning and an immediate “Go To The Hospital – Do Not Pass Go – Do Not Collect $200) at the slightest indication of being tired or feeling pain in my knee
• Rode a motorbike with my housemate and cowered dangerously to the left (when you are a passenger you should NEVER react physically to the things you see) every time we approached on-coming traffic (re-creating the accident scene in my mind every time I saw a motorbike headlight) whimpering and apologizing for being such a wuss

I could probably go on and on and on but you get the point. At least I hope you get the point.

I haven’t been perfect in my attitude towards my injury, surgery, treatment, or recovery.

I’d say at least 25 % of the time I’ve been a whining, bitter, melancholy ball of excuses and irritation for those around me. In all honesty, I’ve wanted to pull my covers over my head and pretend that the entire thing had never happened while begging the world around me to just humor me in my foolish avoidance no less than 47 times.

But as my Mom would remind me, based on this nugget of wisdom from a childhood movie: “It’s in the past”

There was absolutely nothing that could be done to change the things that had already happened.

That the thing with the events of our past. They’ve gone by us now, memories and lessons implanted on our minds and hearts. The only thing we can control, the only thing we have power over, is the way that we react to them and the decisions we make moving forward.

It is not easy to choose being happy and pushing on when you want to give up and be miserable.

And I didn’t always execute on it well. My poor housemates, family, and friends have had to endure more stories, breakdowns, whining fits, and paranoid speculations from me than any human should have to sign on for in the friendship agreement.

Sometimes we need to let ourselves into the dark place to find the light.

Otherwise, we stop dead on the path, susceptible to the creepy-crawlies and terrors that dwell in the night.

I promise you it is not easy.

Sorry for anyone I gave that impression to. And to everyone who had to put up with me over the past 8 weeks.