I honestly wish I had broken my arm at some point as a child. A lot of my emotional development in the past couple years was tied to working a horrible, terrifying job that for all it's faults has finally added some serious context to my life.

Now when an instructor nitpicks my uniform I can think to myself, is this worse than the time I sat 1:1 with a convicted rapist twice my size who insisted I was telepathically communicating my love for him? No? Cool beans. I'ma work on my caremap.

I didn't have that the first time I tried school. I feel like maybe if I'd broken my arm as I child I would've had some of that context sooner.

Honestly I don't think my decisions have as much to do with my safety as one would hope. I try to avoid obvious fall risks but I could still slip in the shower and get a TBI. I try to drive safe but I could still get t-boned tomorrow and wind up hooked on Dilaudid. I can exercise and eat right and it makes it less likely but I could still get diabetes or hypertension and wind up having a heart attack or stroke. I do things that make these things a little less likely but sometimes the world just swallows people up for no reason at all.

I never really did party or take any big physical risks but sometimes I wish I had. It's like the person who tells the therapist that they're terrified their dog is gonna die. The therapist tells them they can solve that issue right there and then: the dog WILL die. Would they like to play with it in the meantime?