I hate change.  I am terrified of it.  Last fall I began my third year at Georgia State, and I was facing some major changes.  I was finishing my course work and looking fearfully towards a future of comprehensive exams and dissertation writing.  The classroom is my safe space, and leaving that space gave me a lot of anxiety.  While I was struggling to contend with this inevitable progression, a different change hit me out of nowhere.

Technically, I suppose, I was the one that came out of nowhere.  I was driving on the interstate in the rain when my car hit a slick spot.  I lost control, spun across the median, and continued into oncoming traffic.  My car was struck twice, once by another sedan and then by a moving truck.  At the hospital, the doctors said that I had broken my back in two places in addition to fracturing my sacrum, and I had to get stitches in my leg where a piece of the passenger side door had lodged itself in my calf.  I spent three days in the hospital under observation until I was able to go home, luckily without having to undergo surgery.

As one might imagine, this event had a major impact on my life.  My previous anxiety turned into a full-blown life crisis.  What was I doing? How could I go back to school?  What meaning do I gain in life from study for comps and writing a dissertation?  How am I making a difference in the world?  More than anything, what ultimately kept me connected to GSU was my students.  I know that my future is in the classroom.  I couldn’t abandon my freshmen, and I couldn’t abandon a future in teaching by running scared from the next steps I had to take.

Which brings me, finally, to the picture.  After a month of rest and rehabilitation, I was able to return to school.  The first thing I had to do when coming back was to get a handicapped parking place.  My most meaningful place on campus is this parking place.  It is, of course, a symbol of the accident and what I went through.  But to me, it also represents a recommitment to my future and my scholarly work.

Change found me once more, but this time, I learned to embrace it.  I found positive change these past months through healing.  This parking space in now empty because I don’t need it anymore.  In March I completed a 5k race, and I am now training for a sprint triathlon.  I have learned that change is something to embrace instead of fear, even when it seems scary.