Scarlet stands repairing a mangled bicycle.
The most inspiring moment of anyone’s childhood is the day you make it onto two wheels. I still long for that adrenaline rush of free wheeling down a long hill. As though not needing to pedal was natures way of giving you a helping hand. That’s when Jason the school counsellor entered my life. He started with hypnosis and connecting with my breathing. Which was different! The conversations about mindfulness got very abstract. Jason was a Reiki healer and buddhist monk. As my frustration grew the sessions continued and I had lost my wing woman, Dana. I felt she was being replaced by Obi Wen. My harmless adolescence was transformed into something that I didn’t identify with. Jason I imagined was sent to rescue me from the dark side. Yet all that really mattered to the school were grades, statistics and career advice.  The story of how I cat-fished my way into the Mayflower with a fake ID spread round the school. From then on there was no stopping me and my newly found status of cool. Little did I realize that things always come in threes. ACCIDENT I was riding my bicycle to uni and I don’t know how... But the driver came off the roundabout after I got on it. As I came off my bike I remember thinking this is it. This is the end. If I survive somehow and I was trying to survive. I actually promised myself if I lived, my life would have no regrets. I even prayed because I didn’t know what was happening. It all moved so slowly and I had all these thoughts. I didn’t have time to see what hit me, they told me afterwards. But I had no helmet on. When you’re young like that you feel fearlessness, an invincibility. That’s been taken from me now, gone forever in just that moment. I can’t tell you what I had for breakfast that day because I don’t remember. Except I usually would have Cornflakes or Weetabix. If I was being healthy, with skimmed milk. I was on the bike to work scheme. Which seemed a great way of saving money and keeping fit. I was never one for what you’d call incentive but Luke and I were saving for the wedding. It was an early winter morning. There was this roundabout on the ride to work and it had all  the shops round it. Sainsbury’s, MCDonald’s, Halfords, a car wash and Luke’s gym. During rush hour it was a total merry go round. But today I was on the  roundabout. I had some good luck in the morning run. Not knowing it would become the ride of my life. You see the difference between letting someone out for a car driver could be a minute lost or saved in the commute. But there was this kind face through the windscreen. It reassured me enough and I cycled forward and left the slowly waking world for this frantic fight for freedom. All this just so I could get to work  in time and save a bit for the wedding. I felt as I joined them in this jaded journey. They were all a part of this spectacle and I felt my legs go into this strange rhythm. Round and round on the pedals. Round and round the cars. Waltzing between them on my blue hybrid road bike. Until something changed. I started to spin and I realized I was no longer the one in control of this ritual dance. There was this screeching sound and a loud bang. I was just alone in a fog with the thudding beat of my heart ad the rush of blood whirring in my ears. Then I became aware of the blue lights, dancing and flickering. As though they were signaling to me to wake from this dream. When I woke up in the hospital, I remember the look on his face. Talking to me as I lay in suspended slumber. He looked so frightened, so young, so unprepared. I knew before I was fully conscious, Luke wouldn’t stick with me. Oh I’m sorry if it’s come out all at once. I didn’t mean it to. I was just  trying too.. Yes I know.. There’s no easy way to say this. I went through it and then all my insides fell out of me. All that there is room for after that is a permanent sinking feeling. So that’s where it began, I sink very slowly into myself, until I disintegrate. I discovered this place that I didn’t want to come out from. So now I have no choice I had no choice but to question was everything always going to be a pretense to me. My life before, the village, this place, where I grew up, seemed irrelevant now. Yet important all at the same time. I feel I’ve reached a kind of permanence, at least thats what it feels like.  Now none of it makes sense. How do you make sense of anything, after you hit your head so hard you could have died from it! And yet I didn’t? Yes, Luke my fiance left me before I was even out of the hospital. He broke up with me in a text. I was sat on the bed in the ward and all I could do was look out the window as the snow fell. Blotting out the sun and out faded all the colour in the world. Luke used to say ‘I knew you were trouble’. As though he didn’t mind. But he didn’t want to hold my hand through all that pain. I spoke to so many Doctors after... That’s how much pain I had, Luke.  I didn’t quite know how I was ever going to pick up the pieces . You never pick them all up completely again. It’s exactly like what they say. Two steps forward and three steps back. It becomes this sort of dance with life. Except it’s all happening on a tightrope. Is it ok with you, if just for a moment you forgot that something life changing happened to me. That way I wouldn’t have to have told you everything. Just so you wouldn’t judge me. You know like the title of a book. Maybe we could just start with a blank sheet of paper. The kind you fold into a paper airplane and let it fly away. What would help me now? So I realized I was left praying for a miracle. Of course that option wasn’t widely accepted by my parents or the college dean. Perhaps you’ll understand why I had to go and talk to someone. Therapy isn’t always that bad. Everyone thinks you lie on a couch. I had this overwhelming void of guilt and shame. I felt like a complete failure at life. That I’d failed everyone. Here I was with my life all planned out and it was now ruined because of... Holly helped me see not everything in life is black and white. We made this list of all the things I’d successfully achieved. My personal triumphs list. I wrote them down and referred to it on days when I felt down. A bit like getting a tattoo except you’re sober. They’re all numbered. I could pick from over three hundred. Like lucky number seven finished college with a triple distinction. Sixty one visited my  new neighbors with a home-cooked meal when they were sick. Today got up and actually made my bed. I found myself becoming very superstitious.  You see we all have them these idiosyncrasies and I learnt was ok. Aren’t those quirks what make you, you? That’s when I realized I really wanted to change people’s lives. I had really wanted to do this incredible audition and win you over. I mean were practically old friends by now. Do you know what I’d really like? If we could sit and get to know each other a bit better. I remember the school assembly where I’d always sit at the back. So I wouldn’t be noticed. Especially in case they tried to get me to sing with the school choir. But when the accident happened all the color disappeared. Like everything that was so bright and vivid and real would hurt me. I felt like it was trying to invade my mind. So I lived in this black and white movie. With no color in my world I was like Dorothy trying to get home. My biggest fear was if I did make it back would anyone see me in technicolor anymore!  Would they recognize me as the girl I once was? Then I realized I would never give up on me. Don’t you remember I made you a promise? I know I may not be what you’re expecting. Am I a let down? I don’t know. I waste time on the sofa scrolling through my social media. Google is now my window to the world. I long for a successful career,  a bigger house, fancy car. I just want to impress you with my amazing social conditioning. Of course it could be your fault that I’m nervous. What really hurts me the most is I have the worst guilt you could ever imagine. What’s wrong with talking? Nothing! The one thing about being a millenial was that the internet revolution changes everything. Not the being hit by a car. I don’t know if my sharing this with you makes it any better for either of us. Often when I  get over emotional I like to sit and meditate for a while. Im still trying to master the lotus position but I keep trying. God loves a trier. So I meditated  and I meditated eventually realizing that this is all a waiting game. It was whilst I was on this monastic diet it dawned on me. Up to now I’d been doing that thing you should never do. Gone shopping when I was hungry. The acceptance of myself brought me this. A pedestal fit for a queen. A cherry on the top of my cake of conviction. It was time to begin again. Get back in the dating pool. Not because I was kissing frogs to find a prince. But my online experiences had me convinced it was more pond-life than real life. Funny how there is always somebody there to talk too online. As though the algorithm was the only sign of my existence. My heart attached to the heart monitor that is the internet. Like a virtual pulse! When someone, ok the really cute guy on instagram likes me I am buzzing. So then the fitness model does an unfollow and I’m like what! Quite the legacy? This is rebirth. My next life stage. A second chance. Like obtaining new life skills. Learning a language is great for the brain, so I’d learn five. Bonjour, Buongiorno, Hola, Guten Tag, Formal nyy privet. I did slightly over commit. I never thought Id be the one to go into neuroscience. If they could see me now! When I moved back home after the accident it’s because I had too. There in the living room was my old piano. Id sit at it and pick out notes to suit my moods. Sometimes repeating the note until I felt a flicker of recognition that I could connect too. Imagine that a real human connection. I thought that was what Luke and I had, a connection. I am now thankful that the accident saved me from that error in judgement. When I play piano I see colour again. I feel real again. I have a lot to thank that accident for. Instead of being someone who lost something I gained the most incredible gift. I get to be on the journey, a voyage of self-discovery. The ultimate journey. I could have tripped a troubled track but I wont go back to black.