Anniversary

It was not until this afternoon did I come to the realization that…

Man… today mark the one year anniversary of the accident that took away my health and a job away from me.

In addition to TV watching, eating and sleeping, all that I do everyday now is… think of nothing, try to release all attempt my mind has to control my body and allow 原神 to repair my body through 行氣. 行氣 involves the sensation of energies moving around your body and could result in movement looking like tai chi--- a more extended version of my swinging movement mentioned in my earlier posting— it is something I used to thought as my sensory and motor hallucinations and now confirmed by people who have had experiences of 行氣.

It was June 19th, 2007, when I was sitting attentively in a meeting about urban education, munching on a piece of raison bran cookie, and, when the foldable chair collapsed under me into one flat piece.

My life now and then seems to be night and day or day and night.

Up to June 19th, 2007, I was young, enthusiastic, energetic, and, perhaps, helpless with my wishful thinking in all capacities.

I vowed to contribute to the betterment of the urban education--- those entitled by our inner city kids.

There are those kids, parents, and the schools that I came across with… I spoke of them as if they were my own.

The topics of discussion in my everyday life surrounds… organizational change, instructional technologies, psychology, research methodology… etc.

Then, the accident fell from the sky and I fell straight on the floor in sitting position at full force.

I remember clearly how in the first week or two, I could still make comments like… “Thank God it is me who sustained the injury for I am still young… It would be much worse off if it were my boss, the faculty members or the school principals because they are older and it would have caused far more inconvenience to some part of the worlds’ important operations.” (Think about a principal-less inner city school for instance).

Today, I would say such comments are as dump and as obnoxious as possible for… not only was I 泥菩薩過江自身難保, such thinking also seem to insinuate a certain degree of importance I assumed about my “suffering.”

So, I walked up and down the street of New York, seeing the green leaves on the trees turning color till eventually leaving on the bare branches. Coming out of the winter, I also walked into my everyday life finding more and more trees blossom and budding till the trees, again, turned green--- at least at the last sight I have of my New York City.

I have gone from receiving disability check till the money discontinued leaving me no income to cover my living expenses.

I have one from being authorized to receive treatment for my spinal injury till I had the greatest difficulties getting physical therapy for my back despite of the court order.

There might have been pains, disability, anger, frustration, depression, delusion, and, the perceived social injustice.

I have gained weight, lost weight, and gain weight again.

In between, I have also gone in and out the New York Psychiatric Institution.

And, let’s not forget how that conversion disorder and psychosomatization thing--- the all inclusive answer to the question that how could my 4-6 disc herniation going from cervical, thoracic to lumbar spine plus the straighten cervical spine caused pains and disability so severe and lasting for such a duration.

In addition to the above, I also received some bad news from the Department of the Homeland Security of the US twice… the first time was about the denial of my self-sponsoring green card as an extraordinary alien while, the second time is more recent—the denial of my Visa application which happened last week.

Looking back, it seems to be fairly self-evident that I have amounted to nothing more than words I have written down through my blog throughout the whole year.

While within this time… many more unfortunate natural disasters globally later and bad economy everywhere in the world reported…. And more.

It is quite weird to look at how evidently useless a year of my life had gone by--- especially when I was thinking about it while swinging my body doing the 行氣 thing on the balcony earlier in the evening.

So I got a cake and my dad boiled two eggs tonight to celebrate the one year anniversary of the accident--- or, perhaps, it is more appropriate to call it the “coming out celebration from my injuries.”

Before he boiled the eggs, my dad mentioned to me about the egg boiling thing… because the act of cracking and pilling off the egg shelf (脫殼) is a symbol of getting over the past…

I welcomed his suggestion and this comment slipped out naturally… “不過是一個殼子而已” (but a shell)--- oops… and I sort of understood what it means…

This makes me wonder, other than my verbal diarrhea in written version, other than the loving thoughts I have and other than the weight I gained… Could it be that this year was not all for nothing although all those once so very important things now seems fairly nothing to me?

Maybe I am in shock, in denial, too drugged out or in everything else otherwise not classified…. Yet… so I thought… life, oh, life.

What do I know....