Life Half Full

And an excerpt from my book

I had a near-death experience at 25. It resulted in a couple of emergency surgeries, a giant scar across my belly, and ongoing issues with my breathing. I have had 15 surgeries since. Add a couple of pregnancies (totally worth it), a car accident (totally not worth it), some caregiving, and you have a recipe for varsity-level depletion.

But I didn’t know. I just didn’t know. Because I couldn’t remember feeling good.

I am now 50. This means half of my life, and all of my children’s lives, has been a slow crawl, a lot of energy management, surges of output and creativity, tempered by surgeries and recoveries. And so much work to accept what was. To still create a great life, some amazing businesses, a vast network of the most amazing friends, and have a second epic childhood with my kids. My adult life has been filled with magic and has cost every bit of energy I could muster. Underwater is an understatement.

Half of my life. Half full? Half empty? Honestly, I have experienced moments of feeling both. I like to believe my life half full. I don’t know. I do know I feel great right now. It is miraculous. One of the most shocking things about this newfound vitality is realizing how long I have not felt healthy. How life-shaping health is, good or bad.

I recently re-read a piece I had written about the original experience at 25. I think about my mom watching her once energetic kid get progressively sicker, sliced up, flatlined, returned, and eventually discharged. My oldest is almost 24. I cannot imagine her terror.

Below is “Guts,” the story of my near-death experience and the beginning of it all, for paid subscribers from my still-in-progress memoir, “The Mink Pen.” This piece was originally published in “We Leave The Flowers Where They Are,” an anthology curated, edited, and published by the one and only Richard Fifield.