There's no going back...
From the accident that shook my life to the choices reshaping our family's future.
Trauma changes you. I’ve known this, understood it, and spent the last ten years working alongside healing modalities that support people in finding their way through it. And then, I experienced trauma in a way that shook my life, shattered expectations, and changed me in ways I never could have anticipated.
I’m still in the early stages of navigating this new world I find myself in, but I’ve decided to write it down. Part journal, part processing space, part how-to manual, this writing is a way for me to share what I’m learning in real time as I begin to shake up my life and see where the dust settles. And somewhere in that, maybe I’ll find a way to settle back into myself again.
February 27th was a day of excitement in our household. My oldest daughter was going to a dance, and we were hosting some friends beforehand for snacks and pictures. The last several years have asked a lot of me, learning how to juggle a family of six, another move, a career, the natural growing pains within a relationship, and just life in general. Life is a lot… for all of us.
In the midst of it being a lot, I’ve been practicing what I teach, working to stay within my window of tolerance, trying not to take on more than my system could hold. Social gatherings, especially hosting, had started to feel like more than I was willing to carry, so I had quietly pulled back over the past few years. But as my oldest begins to move toward her teenage years, I’ve been feeling something shift. I realized that if I wanted our home to be a place where kids could gather, where they felt safe to land and just be, I would need to begin opening back up in a way I had been hesitant to.
And in doing that, I noticed something I didn’t expect. The energy I had spent trying to stay within my capacity had actually created its own kind of anxiety around hosting, one that didn’t fully match reality anymore. The evening was easy. It was light. It was genuinely enjoyable. I had meaningful conversations with other mothers, the kind that feel grounding and real, and I walked away feeling connected instead of depleted. This is the importance of tuning in and orienting to the moment. We condition ourselves into spaces that we outgrow. This moment reminded me of the value and necessity of regular check-ins with myself and that facing my anxiety head on only helps me realize where I’ve grown my capacity and where I can put down the protections I once needed. I truly believe that in order to heal and become who we’re here to be, we have to be willing to see ourselves honestly, especially the parts that arise out of protection, the patterns that are harder to love. It feels good to see how far I’ve come and freeing to imagine what else could come from this growth.
After we took some photos, we loaded the girls into my husband’s Suburban to head to the dance. I watched them spill out of the car when we arrived, full of life and sparkle. I drove away in the quiet, feeling grateful to witness this season of my daughter’s life, to know the people she’s spending time with and to feel a sense of ease in loving them, too.
When it was time to pick them up, I briefly considered taking my own car since we wouldn’t all be coming home together. But I already had my husband’s keys in my hand, so I got back into the Suburban and went, not knowing this giant boat of a car would save my life.
We laughed most of the way home, talking about who danced with who, what songs came on, the awkward and hilarious details that seem to define nights like that. I dropped the first friend off, and we headed toward the last girl’s house.
It was around 9:20 when we entered the intersection. I don’t have a clear memory of approaching it, in fact I don’t have a clear memory of the entire accident. I was awake and talking to the helpers and even spoke to my husband on a FaceTime call, but I don’t remember it. What I have are fragments: flashes of light, the feeling of chaos inside my body as the firefighters worked to pry the car open, and a deep, instinctual fear that the girls had been hurt. And every time I picture the scene, I see a giant angel wing covering our car as we spun into the railing that caught us before rolling into a storm drain.
I regained consciousness in a hospital bed where a kind, gentle presence was taking x-rays of my legs. Another nurse attempted to administer pain medication through my IV, but I refused. I’ve watched people I love struggle with addiction that began in moments like this, and even in that state, I was afraid to go down that path. We compromised on a mild oral medication.
I knew I had been in an accident, and more than anything, I wanted my husband in the way a child wants their blankey. He was there quickly, and we just cried… relieved to be together, relieved that he could advocate for me while my mind tried to catch up with what had happened. It turns out, I had been t-boned by a very drunk driver who had blown through a red light at a busy intersection in the middle of town. It is a miracle that I am alive.
I finally had the answer to the only question I had asked over and over to the firefighters: “Are the girls okay?” Yes. Both girls walked away from the accident shaken and terrified, but with only minor bruising and whiplash. And with that, I could begin to orient to my own journey ahead.
There is so much waiting in hospitals. So we waited. We didn’t talk much. We just held hands in the quiet. Eventually, they took me for a CT scan of my head and chest. Being in the machine stirred up a wave of anxiety, so I started singing to myself. The only thing that came was a children’s song I’ve sung with my kids countless times:
“Every little cell in my body is happy, every little cell in my body is well.”
And somehow, it was exactly what I needed to get through to the other side. On the other side was good news and a lot of pain. Among the massive bruising, cuts, and swelling in my legs, the only structural injury was a fracture of my fibula that wouldn’t require surgery. My CT and bloodwork showed significant signs of a concussion, but there was no internal bleeding in my brain. And with that, I was released in the early hours of the morning.
We arrived home before anyone was awake. I felt so grateful my parents were able to come stay with us to receive my daughter and help her settle in while our three younger children slept. My whole life had changed, and my world was asleep. The juxtaposition of that, the relief and the internal chaos, was a lot to land at home with. But I was too exhausted to process it. We slept for an hour before the kids woke up, and then we shared the news.
It’s wild to be with 4 small people and witness them experience life, especially in the difficult moments. We are all so different, and I’m reminded of our radical uniqueness every time I watch them respond to the same moment in their own way. Since that morning, we’ve seemingly returned to center as a family, but the truth is we all know nothing will ever be the same.
And so I’m writing now to uncover what is and what is next.
There is no going back. It feels like I was living on land and then suddenly dropped into the water. I can let life carry me downstream, or I can get in the boat and take the oars, guiding my life in the direction I want to go, knowing with a new clarity that while I can learn to steer, I can’t control the weather.
Over the last several weeks my husband, James, and I have begun to solidify some radical changes in our family life, choices that move us toward living the life we’ve been quietly dreaming about.
When we moved to Texas, one of our guiding intentions was to create enough financial space to travel with our kids. It’s been five years, and we haven’t made that dream a reality yet. We had just booked our first trip to Costa Rica this May, and I held onto that as a marker for my healing. But something shifted. A one-time trip stopped feeling like a big enough dream.
If I only get so many days on this planet, I don’t want to spend them making plans that never come to life. I’m ready to live it now, fully, because I have a new, embodied understanding that everything can change in an instant.
And so, we’ve stepped into a new way forward. James is building the business he’s been holding back from, choosing to move beyond the comfort of a steady salary. I’ve stepped away from client work to homeschool one of my children who needs extra support right now. And we’ve committed to a worldschooling program that will take us to Europe for six months next year.
We have no idea what we are doing and yet, our souls absolutely know the road forward so we are putting our faith in a good and beautiful God who sent angels to save my life for a reason and we are going to live out what that reason is. I hope you’ll join us as I write about our journey over the next year. It will be a tale of healing, learning, growth, adventure, family, travel, and love. Because it’s all for love, anyways.
Welcome to a new beginning of what I am calling Sacred Human Journal, a place where I write from inside my experience and hope to stimulate curiosity about where you’d like to take yours.