I remember

Fifteen years ago yesterday, I had seven and a half hours of Orthopedic surgery. I remember it, not like it was yesterday, but I remember more than I would like to. I walked into the operating room with my mother, and hours later, I woke in the recovery room, not knowing if the surgery was really over, and too afraid to ask, and then I do. My parents aren't there, and I stare at the ceiling. A strange feeling, walking in and hours later, unable to walk, move, confused. Sometimes I can feel the fear I felt, knowing yes, I planned on this, and I wanted this, and it was necessary, but I didn't really want it. At first I was enticed by the fact that I would have a straight knee, instead of my right knee facing left. I didn't know that the operation would entail my feet, my tibia, my hip. At 13, my identity was forming, and my body was restructured, and so my sense of self was as well. This experience changed my identity, and to this day, there are reminders. This experience also represents life. A line can divide life into before and after, and you never know how a surgery will turn out, and it's nobody's fault if it doesn't turn out how you hoped, but I felt like it was someone's fault. I don't really know why I am writing this. Not because I want to tell everyone how hard my life is or how tough I am.
When I share that surgical story with friends, or people that ask, I realize maybe life is one big rehabilitative experience, restructuring ourselves. Everybody can look back in a phase and say "Oh that's when I was really into dinosaurs." We learn, we experience, we grow, move forward, then in my case I have intense periods of thought that involve the internet, YouTube, and blog reading. This is life.