I had a heart attack two years ago (story here). A few minutes after arriving at the ER, I lost consciousness. The ER doctor later told my girlfriend that I was “dead” depends on your definition of “dead”) for about three minutes. They had to shock me several times to get me back.
When I finally woke up 10 hours later, my girlfriend was sitting beside my hospital bed, and was telling me that now I had a “second chance”. This puzzled me. Second chance? At what? I was 54 at the time, pretty poor but didn’t owe any money, so I was getting by, and things were okay, but I wasn’t what you would call “happy”. I guess I was existing, working my ass off to get by, with a few sporadic happy moments to keep me going.
Suddenly, this “second chance” I was given has resulted in debt that I’ll never see the end of. And I had good insurance, but there was also loss of work.
I realized all this within minutes of waking up, and all I could think was, “Oh, cripes. I was there. The one thing I had feared all my life, and I did it. I managed to die. Had I stayed that way, all my troubles would be over. And now I have even more.”
In the two years since, I’ve changed my attitude quite a bit, as it was very selfish. I’m trying like hell to be a better person. That’s all I can really do. I’m still working, I am gradually losing my battle with the bills, but I keep pushing on. I’m still here for some reason. Maybe I’ll figure it out some day, maybe not. But I have nothing to lose by putting in the effort. And my girlfriend still loves me, so there’s that.
Reading that over just now, that sounds pretty bleak. I’m actually not. I have more happy times now than I did before. There are times when I actually enjoy my work now. Not sure why, exactly. I guess I’m looking for the positives in everyone I meet.