How to Survive a Tree Falling on You - Track #3

After the accident, every day in the hospital, someone would comment on my physicality. Someone, in some way, would be impressed by what I could do…given the circumstances.

At first I thought their bar was low. I mean, I’m pretty sure the competition in the ICU wasn’t that steep - I could have probably walked circles around the other patients…if I was able to walk.

But when I got to rehab I kinda got what they were saying; Doing one legged bridges when they needed to grab a block from underneath me on the PT table. Standing on one leg while they maneuvered my wheelchair around me. Asking them for additional exercises to strengthen my hip flexors. The whole time I joked that this was what all of those years of working out doing yoga were for.

But then I started to believe that maybe that’s what they were for.

Maybe all those years of pushing my body to get into shape (or more truthfully get into “a” shape) were really about getting my body into a place to be strong enough for…I don’t know… say a tree falling on me. I mean, if a tree fell on me and I only broke an ankle, pulled part of my brachial plexus, and got a small, non-fatal, skull fracture, then maybe my body was strong as fuck.

I had to sit with that for a bit…which was easy since i was in a wheelchair (ba-dum-tss). I had to sit with not seeing my body as this part of me that would never be good enough, and instead see it a part of me that was fucking incredible.

And I started thinking about one person in particular who has, in this weird and awesome way, been a huge part of my body getting stronger: Ryan. We first met when he was an instructor at Burn. He was beautiful and bubbly. No judgement just love. And he had the best music taste - which is how we got to know each other. After months of classes and sending each other tracks, we became friends. And after years of working out, dinners, group classes (when he went out own his own to become an amazing trainer), shows, and soulcycle classes, we became family.

When i was finally home I left Ryan a message telling him that our relationship through fitness was probably a huge reason why I was still alive.

He called me back the next day to tell me I was wrong.

Instead he told me that my body was the reason. He told me he’s watched my body for years - on the mat, on the springboard, on the bike, and on the dance floor - and the way I moved to music was this innate part of me…and that it was a rarity.

It kinda blew my mind (and made me cry). The idea that the same part of me that was pulled to raves when I was 15, the same part of me that would be one of the last people standing (well…dancing really) at house parties, the same part of me that always made friends on the dance floor, the same part of me that can’t sit still to tracks like these, would be the part of me that would keep me alive.

It’s fucking crazy when you think about it.

But it also makes perfect fucking sense.