A few weeks ago I was on a meandering stroll through the Internet, clicking on links in tweets and following paths through blogs until I could no longer remember where I’d been or where I’d started. And yet I ended up where I was apparently meant to be: Bad Words, reading the heartbreaking story about the birth of this woman’s son. I wanted to know what happened next, so I kept reading. I clicked on a few of her links, and learned something about the deaf community that was really eye-opening for someone who has always thought “hard of hearing” was the politically correct term.

And then I noticed an odd little word in the navigation at the top.

“Whoa.”

Not the type of thing you usually see in a blog’s navigation, so I clicked on it and read what was there.

Yeah. Whoa.

“Do you have a day?” the page asked*. “Before this day, you were just you… Until it happened to you. Suddenly you weren’t you anymore. You were that person that the unimaginable thing happened to.”

Not me anymore? How did it know?

“Did you rage against it? Being an other?”

Did I rage against it?! Yes. Yes, I did.

“Did you beg and plead and pray to The Universe to make it not be? Were you certain that if you demanded that it not be, if you begged, plead, prayed hard enough, The Universe would hear you and change your life back to what it was?”

Ah, The Universe. The Universe and I are on very good terms. Or not, depending how you look at it, for The Universe did not change my life back to what it was.

“Did you admit defeat, shed the delusion of control and leave yourself at the mercy of The Universe?”

No. Why? Should I?

“And once you let it all fall away, did you flick that last bit of rubble off your shoulder, plant your hand on your hip and wonder who you were going to be on the other side of this? Did you tell The Universe it could go ahead and have its way with you?”

Hand on hip – check. Wondering who – check. But oh dear. I hadn’t let anything go. I was afraid of the rubble, frankly. What if it buries me? What if whoever I am doesn’t come out from under it? But…okay. I’ve started listening.

At the end the page asked (in italics because it’s important):

“Do you want to go back in time and whisper to your former self:

Don’t worry. It’s going to be ok. It’s going to suck. You’ll be smashed to smithereens. You’ll be built back up again. You’ll be more you than you’d ever imagined. It’s going to be ok.”

Smashed to smithereens. It sounds like a sudden occurrence. A single blow. For some people I imagine it is, but for me it’s been a long process. More than three years (and probably longer if you count other parts of my history) of issues and illness chipping away at the rock of my core. There is rubble already – jagged, tear-stained rubble – and for weeks now I thought I’d flicked it all off. I have flicked some of it away. I’ve had crews come, without being asked, to help me lift some of the larger pieces. But it wasn’t gone. And then I found more including the most recent rock slide, which I didn’t see coming.

I’ve been smashed to smithereens all right, but in the last few days I’ve hauled out my industrial-sized broom and swept away some of that rubble.

I won’t lie – I’m afraid some of it will come back. Or that there’s yet more rubble to fall.

But after begging and pleading and waiting for the Universe to just fix this already, I’ve started to accept the process. And the next part of it has to start with me.

I have shed the delusion of control – over some things, anyway – and have left myself at the mercy of The Universe. We’re back on better terms now – things are coming across my path when they’re meant to and I’m taking note of those signs.

One such sign was these words of whoa, for which I thank Tulpen, both for writing them and for allowing me to share the effect they had on me.

So yes, I want to go back and whisper that to my former self. Because, for today at least, I think it’s going to be okay.

*These excerpts are just that – parts of a raw, powerful, in-your-face whole that I encourage you to read in its entirety.