Me Thinks Too Much

I think that one of the strangest aftereffects of the accident is the way in which it has changed my thought process throughout any given day. You see, I was once more like the dog in the photo above. Now I’m more like the guy with the blue body. I remember laying in the hospital bed after the accident and thinking that all I wanted at the time was to be able to enter into a restaurant (don’t know why, but it was a Chili’s) and sit down to drink a soda and eat a meal. I wanted to go in with a body that wasn’t all beat up. I wanted to enter the place as an average guy that nobody really noticed. I wanted to be injury free and spend a night out where I wasn’t all beat up and quite so noticeable. It was such a simple desire that attempted to reach beyond the fact that I was the center of attention in a hospital room that everyone else either attended to or worried about. Even in the hospital I wasn’t preoccupied with much beyond short-term goals and simple desires.

I don’t think that things are so simple now. It is certainly true that I am now far from being the center of attention (it’s a little funny to me that I had to come close to death in order to receive so much attention from some of the people in my life…but not so much now that I’m better). It’s just that now my mind seems occupied during times that I should be more focused on something instead of everything. I often go back mentally to my stay in the hospital and the physical therapy center, while sometimes relating something happening in the present to my time there. I also think about more recent doctor’s visits and what was said to me. I think about future procedures and how they will affect me. I think about my physical issues and the things necessary to get myself better. I think about our finances and the need to secure my wife’s future in a better way. I think about the ministry and my need to make certain that things are always in good order. The list goes on and on, but I think that you get the picture. It didn’t used to be this way. You must believe me when I say that I had faced my share of trials and challenges in life long before the accident occured. Some of those things were quite intense, but I always moved on and maintained the same basic way of thinking, The accident, however, seems to have changed the way that I think.

I have really good blood pressure numbers, but my mind is still occupied like the guy in the photo above. I am a man of prayer, and I fully trust God. Honest. This post isn’t about fear. It’s just that I think about things all of the time now, and I didn’t before the accident. Odd thing to say, but I really need to get back to being more like the dog. Arf.