oh, old pictures. lots.

I found some pictures recently that were taken prior to my injury. Actually, most of them were my senior pictures, and I hadn’t handed them all out when I was injured in my car accident. A few are from when I was really small and a few are from just teenage years. I look at them and feel both sadness and happiness. Sad because my arms were full and my hands were full. They looked healthy and the muscle was all there, while now they are skinny and atrophied. I realized while looking at these pictures that I’m quite self-conscious about them now. I felt sad, I guess, because my body was whole, intact, unharmed. Without a spinal cord injury, that’s what it was.

The happiness comes from a different place. I look at those pictures and know how naive I was. I envy that naivety a bit, but I know I have grown so much and developed as a person far greater than I ever expected. I was slightly reckless with myself. I was fearless about people. I trusted far too easily and never worried about whether they would hurt me.

I never looked at my injury in this way before. It took many things away physically but gave me so much emotionally and mentally. I wouldn’t say it was a trade-off, but I suppose everything has been negative about this. If I could go back and change it, I would, but I would want the things I have learned also.

I feel like I was a completely different person then, and sometimes I miss the girl in those pictures.

I’ll try to go in chronological order in these:

Mark and I caught a toad in the garden. I was a tomboy.

Maria and I messing around for Easter one year.
(sorry the next ones look so large).




Senior pictures above.

In my McDonald’s gear. I was the drive-thru girl most of the time.

We took a trip to Pennsylvania the summer before my senior year. Jeanie, Brian, and I were dancing fools this night.

Mom, Grandma Thelma, and I.

My mom and I in front of my aunt’s restaurant.

Myself and cousin Dawn Marie.

This was the last photo taken of me before my accident. It happened 5 nights later. And this would be the infamous TM I am always spewing about. It’s the only photo I have of the two of us, and it’s a bad one (dang it!). Obviously the date would be wrong. It should be April 20th, 2003. We had a barbecue for my cousin who was abandoning Kansas for California. Smart girl, if you ask me. :)