I had my first seizure last Tuesday.

I know…What the what?! Who includes that in their list of “firsts?”

And holy what wow…Did it wipe me out!

Literally it short circuited me. I don’t remember it or have any clear recollection except for the awakening from it.

I was off dreaming in Never-Never Land and having a full-blown mind movie moment.

I didn’t even know I was out.

I’m fine now. So, let’s get past that.

I’m only writing about it to apply it to life…

Imagine that

It’s what I do

how I process

how I progress

how I deliver my purpose

My message and all my messes.

But let’s rewind to the night before.

I was tired.

Exhausted.

Emotional.

And only one-week post-op from a major surgery when my teen daughter said to me…

Mom, maybe you should quit trying to one up yourself each day

And just let yourself be.

Her words dropped silent tears from my hazel eyes…

Just.

Be.

She was right.

I needed to slow down and accept this was my time to recover and simply

Just

Be.

How we forget that is a full-time job without any fancy accolades.

I walked inside our house

To pray in the shower

To cry out loud

To let it all go

To receive what was mine…

Justified Rest.

But the shower was taken

Which made me livid because all I wanted to do was wash away this sickness.

The toddler in me threw a massive tantrum

Inside myself of course

Come on y’all

Gimmie me some credit

Emotional strength is part of my wherewithal arsenal now. A few years ago, not so much — so a big shout out to Brendan Buchard and all your personal development coaching.

But the clearly beaten down woman left standing there was ready to succumb to climbing into bed all yucky and smelly from the day

Screw the shower

I just wanted to lay down and rest my head.

Now as I was peeling off my 12-hour old black workout pants that clung to my hips and pulling my oversized hoodie off my head (I know it’s mid-summer but somehow my kid's hoodie habit is a contagiously good super comfy extremely weird year-round habit)

I saw droplets of red fall from my face in a slow-motion splash onto my bed

Seriously?

Come on.

Really?

You’ve got to be kidding me…

You’re gonna slap me with this ridiculousness right now?

Then it started gushing

And

Gushing more

Like scary movie

More

Like hit a major artery

More

Gushing from my nose like a Russian knife fight gone bad

More

(I have no idea what a Russian knife fight is like or if they even have such a thing but let’s go with it)

I stood there helplessly losing the battle with my blood vessels pouring the crimson from my soul and for the next 30 minutes, I watched in unbelief as my body basically said

Yep

You are done.

STOP

IT.

When the gushing finally ceased, I went to bed dirty WITH the day.

Messing with my morning meditation, the same thing happened again the next day except I was halfway down my street walking when my nose began leaving a trail of blood splatters on the concrete.

I was barely moving.

Below a turtle's pace.

And before you say it, I was told I could walk

Get fresh air

Fill up in nature a few minutes each day.

Curse words flung rapidly off my tongue

Quickly followed by repentance (I promise I’ve been working on them)

I walked back home

Bleeding profusely

And then off the hospital we went.

I’m smart enough to know you don’t mess around after major surgery plus we had a follow up appointment anyway.

Timing…

It ain’t just a thing

It’s always perfectly in sync.

Two days prior I had been so excited to go to the hospital to get an A-OK clearance from the surgeon because I was ancy to move my body

exercise

workout

run free.

I see you and your fit shaming eye roll. That’s cool. I ain’t ever gonna stop. It’s what I love to do. So, you do you. I’m gonna keep doing me.

But the A-OK I wanted wasn’t on the schedule for me that Tuesday.

Because my brain SUDDENLY burst into the doctor’s room flinging open the door Perplexed and wondering what in the world did SHE come in here for.

She looked at me

Like an out of body experience

Staring me down

Worse than a deer in headlights

And then promptly failed in her number one duty to keep me fired up

AND that’s when all my inside traffic lights went kaput.

I slumped over

With eyes wide open

Shaking…

My head

My hands

My arms

My whole body

Yep

Just like in the movies.

The entire thing was like

10 seconds flat

That’s it.

Simply Seconds

Mere Moments

And

Life is — was irrevocably interrupted.

Just like that

BOOM!

Done.

No going back.

And

Whether you like it or not

you get a new unwanted first…

Often there are no warnings

No cautions

No danger ahead

It’s risky here

You’re about to get hit with uncharted territory

It’s just lights out

And I would have never known had I not woken up.

Now some will call it

A hardship

A trauma

A oh my word you poor thing

Me? Not so much.

Some will call it

A story

A moment

A glimpse of unbelief and how quickly reality don’t really show favoritism to you or to me.

The mistake is

We all think we have time

And WE don’t.

You don’t

I don’t

We

Just

Don’t.

I’m not saying a small little seizure is anything big or grand

It’s not

It just is

People live with this everyday God bless ‘em

But that’s beyond the point AND You are far too black and white if ALL you’re seeing is the seizure in the story I’m typing

(and if you can’t tell, I don’t care about being grammatically proper with sentence structure either — I write free flowing from my feelings and all their rough reconciliations running rampant through my memories)

But that Tuesday was a first for me.

A first

I didn’t want

It was a first

I didn’t ask for

It was a first

I didn’t cause

And certainly wasn’t prepared for

It flashed me forward without my permission into a world where the thought of losing your place in time And everyone else around you gets to keep standing in theirs while you’re trapped in an unknown space is a pretty freaking Stranger Thing-ish thing to me.

Maybe…

You lost time too

You got wiped out

You got side-swiped

You got disrupted

Or disconnected from being here now

When all you were trying to do was have a wellness check

A life of ease

Doing your thing

Not messing with nobody

BUT then BAM

your most valuable asset was snatched up and taken away

Without your consent

Ignoring your disagreement

Disregarding your plans and needs…

But what if THAT was your wellness check

To show you your gut

To yell at your persistence

To write your name on the chalkboard as a caution light

That burning the candle at both ends only gets you more darkness rather than the greatness you seek.

10 seconds flat was all it took

To take me out

To set me back

And put me exactly where I was supposed to be.

This stealing of your most precious prize

This trespass on your time

This intrusion in our souls

This entrapment we never saw coming…

Maybe it plays out

To teach us how to breathe a little more patiently

To sit down peacefully

Gladly

Without resistance

and

To

Just

Be.

Makes me thank God for my daughter and her emphatic ability to understand exactly what I need(ed) especially when I’m blind to the burdens my body is(was) desperately seeking refuge from.

 

By: Robyn Tanner