My Scars Are My Reminder

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It’s been a year since my accident.

On October 7th, I was taken to the ER received 17 stitches and was dependant on crutches for a few months. The pain subsided along with my bruises yet a deep scar remained which looks like the number 7. Many people told me it was just my bad luck, being in the wrong place at the wrong time…. and others, including the ER doctor, said I was one of the lucky ones.

This is one example of many painful trials and tribulations I’ve endured this past year. It has encouraged me to reflect upon circumstances or the actions of others and have discernment to recognize the difference between the two.

Why do we as a society interpret negative outcomes as bad luck, karma or misfortune? 

The challenge of being alive and living a life, that sometimes may throw us from one extreme to another is to stay open to things we don’t fully understand. These circumstances, that in the moment we judge to be “bad” or “incomprehensible” or “negative” are just events happening. Period. Not to us. Not against us. Just happening. We ascribe moral judgments to things or people when life doesn’t comply with our expectations as to “how it should be.”

I’m learning how to accept what the moment is trying to teach me. Sometimes this is through extraordinarily difficult situations via pain, rejection, heartbreak, discomfort or defeat. Other times is just by remaining open to unexpected turns of events or speed bumps that inevitably reveal the true colors of a person and of life.

And sometimes there is no direct link, or… maybe we are all interconnected by some thinly drawn string like the unseen silk of a spider’s web that’s only illuminated when it’s backlit by the sun. Hence the term, everything happens for a (good) reason. 


My life this year has taken many unexpected sharp and painful turns, the number 7 on my knee reminds me of how very lucky I am.