One year ago today I woke up in a hospital bed unable to move.

I had no idea where I was or what had happened. My sister looked at me and said, “You tried to commit suicide.” I said, “No I didn’t. What happened?”

I had gone to a ketamine clinic while in a severe medication-induced depression after months of telling multiple psychiatrists that something was deeply wrong. I didn’t feel like myself. I couldn’t access my creativity, my work, or my mind in the way I always had before.

The next thing I remember after my mom getting a good parking spot was waking up a month and a half later with both legs destroyed, fractures throughout my body, and metal replacing parts of my bones.

I’m lucky to be alive.

I’m lucky to be walking.

And strangely enough, I’m lucky for all of it.

Nothing would have brought me back to Dallas otherwise. Now I’m here with my parents at 88 and 84, helping care for them while rebuilding a completely different life than the one I thought I wanted.

A year later, I’m still healing physically, mentally, financially, spiritually. But I’m here. And I think more people should talk about the ugly parts of life instead of only posting the polished moments.

This photo isn’t beautiful.

But surviving is.

And sometimes the thing that completely breaks your life apart is also the thing that returns you to yourself.