Alright, 2023!

What a year 2022 was! I won't speak for everyone, but if 2020 and 2021 were cousins, 2022 was definitely their ghetto first cousin.

Like everyone else, in 2020 and 2021 too, I was excited and ready for the new year. Goals ready. Intentions set, and BAM. Literally. I severely injured myself in a single-vehicle crash on February 10. I broke almost everything on the left side of my face and suffered a pilon fracture of my tibia and ankle. No pun intended, but this accident crushed me.

I spent my 42nd birthday confined to a wheelchair. I completed some things. I curated a highly pivotal committee that was instrumental in launching a pageant and fulfilled my obligations as parade coordinator. I vacationed and still did some things that brought me enjoyment, but it would be over 150 days before I stood on my own and took those all too critical first steps to walk again.

I was bitter; I'm not sure depression equates to how low I felt. I wanted to walk, but I didn't even know if I could. I wanted to feel like myself, and I didn't even know who that was anymore.

After almost six excruciating months, I took those first steps in late July and slowly began my recovery. I would take videos of me walking to document my progress. I started going to the gym, and without paying attention, I started becoming me. Not the old me, a better version of me that crashed.

And if we're being honest, the crash was imminent. Maybe not an actual collision, and perhaps not one that left me close to death with a catastrophic injury, but a shakeup no less. Something to totally unnerve me and push me beyond my limits. I had been complacent for a long time; the universe sent me the ultimate test to move me from my comfortable nest.

Here we are in a new year, and those same hopes for 2022 still exist, but only kinda. Those goals feel different in some ways; they need to be grander. That Tasha doesn't live in the same space, so how can those dreams. Things get more significant and urgent when you accept that they aren't promised.

So. Here we are. Dreaming big and working hard with an unshakeable faith in myself and my abilities. I've always doubted myself or what I thought I could accomplish. Now, I'll just be damned if anyone tries, especially me. Last year's events proved to me that I can do anything. I don't walk the same, but I don't need to. I unlock a new version of myself regularly and realize I lack nothing. Not anywhere.

Here's to another year. To the best version of me. To 2023 and beyond.