What’s the significance of May 19th, 2008? It’s the day I almost died in a car accident. It's a day I look back to with such gratitude for life. I caused that car accident; I turned too early. My impatience caused me to suffer a traumatic brain injury. The parts of my brain that were injured were the parts that control short term memory, personality, and emotions. I spent 10 days in the hospital. I don’t remember the day of my accident, the 10 days I spent in the hospital, or my first few days back home.
The doctors thought it would be a good idea for me to write; to help my memory. I could look back at days and see what I had done. I wrote the summer after my accident in 2008 and didn't stop for seven years. I wrote from ages 17 to 24. For many years, I believed I would share my journal in full as a memoir but instead I'll tell my story of recovery, professional life, and relationships in a book told in traditional narrative non-fiction format. Here's an excerpt:
The doctors thought it would be a good idea for me to write; to help my memory. I could look back at days and see what I had done. I wrote the summer after my accident in 2008 and didn't stop for seven years. I wrote from ages 17 to 24. For many years, I believed I would share my journal in full as a memoir but instead I'll tell my story of recovery, professional life, and relationships in a book told in traditional narrative non-fiction format. Here's an excerpt:
From Chapter One "No Crying (Or Sleeping) in Show Business" from my book "No Shame in Sharing: Discovering Yourself in Life's Un-Postable Moments"
"I laid out my plan: effortlessly get into business school, sail through my classes, intern with a major entertainment company, secure a fabulous job before graduation, and make six figures after school. Just for color, I threw a fine, successful fiancé in the mix.
When I tell you, God laughed at my plan and proceeded to crumble up the paper I wrote it on, I’m not even kidding! Not one element of my plan came together.
When I took inventory of my life in late 2019, it was rough. Months after graduation, I didn’t have a full-time job. I moved back in with my parents and took a part-time job in retail. I was in disbelief, like God, how could you let this happen to me? Had I not been faithful? I was pursuing a dream You gave me, what gives?!
It’s a story I almost didn’t share. It takes a lot for me to feel embarrassed, but I allowed my difficult MBA journey to make me feel shame. I didn’t want to acknowledge this difficult period in my life. I wanted to gloss over it like a footnote in my life story until one day, I realized, this is the story I need to tell."
"I laid out my plan: effortlessly get into business school, sail through my classes, intern with a major entertainment company, secure a fabulous job before graduation, and make six figures after school. Just for color, I threw a fine, successful fiancé in the mix.
When I tell you, God laughed at my plan and proceeded to crumble up the paper I wrote it on, I’m not even kidding! Not one element of my plan came together.
When I took inventory of my life in late 2019, it was rough. Months after graduation, I didn’t have a full-time job. I moved back in with my parents and took a part-time job in retail. I was in disbelief, like God, how could you let this happen to me? Had I not been faithful? I was pursuing a dream You gave me, what gives?!
It’s a story I almost didn’t share. It takes a lot for me to feel embarrassed, but I allowed my difficult MBA journey to make me feel shame. I didn’t want to acknowledge this difficult period in my life. I wanted to gloss over it like a footnote in my life story until one day, I realized, this is the story I need to tell."
