Reflecting...7yrs

7 years ago today my life changed dramatically...in the blink of an eye. I'll write the entire story later on as it's a long one & I'm tired as I've not yet slept and it's almost 9:30am...this combo of exhaustion/insomnia is driving me crazy! Anyway, my SCI-anniversary has obviously fallen on Thanksgiving in these years & it is ALWAYS during Thanksgiving week. My family has not had a "normal" Thanksgiving in those 7yrs...We've tried but it's always something to make things crazy or hectic. This yr I'm going w/my sister & her fiance to his family's Thanksgiving celebration & our parents are going to make a small turkey to celebrate when we get home. I miss the normality of Thanksgiving that we had when I would drive 3hrs to come home for a hectic holiday and then have to go back to work the next day. Yeah, it was insanity, but it was "normal" to me. I guess this is the new "normal" but I miss the family making dinner all day long together & being silly as we're doing it. Obviously that first year, I was in the hospital so my family had their attention focused on me. A friend from school was kind enough to bring my mom a dinner plate from her family's thanksgiving dinner(one of the few things I remember from that 1st week) which was a wonderful gesture & was much appreciated, but the holiday was still not the same. It still isn't. We try to listen to "Alice's Restaurant" at noon every year still, but most years we're not even all completely up & concious by noon...I hope that we get to hear it tomorrow. Nonetheless, these are not the only things that have changed in the past seven years, I don't have enough time or energy to go through everything right now. I've seen friend get married, divorced, pass away, have babies, even lose kids and parents. I have made some wonderful friendships & had my back stabbed by people I thought were friends so badly I thought I'd never trust anyone again. I met someone whom I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with and now, unfortunately, I don't even know where he is or how he is doing. I went to the most amazing physical therapy center(SCI-Step) & made amazing progress. I've had medical issues that have set me back & not allowed me to have physical therapy. I hope to go back to SCI-Step  in the spring. There are some things I need to accomplish in order to do that though. I've had several surgeries, all of which have gone well & have made the progress back to PT better. Needless to say I've had ups & downs. I'm still trying to figure out why I am so exhausted ALL the time. I can't seem to do anything that takes any energy without having to take a nap immediately afterward.  I'm looking forward to a Thanksgiving with my sister's future family tomorrow & celebrating another year of being alive.