Today marks twelve years since I bounced off a giant car and crashed onto the sidewalk, aka, my Alive Day. Every year when this anniversary comes around, I think, “is it silly to keep blogging about it and telling everyone about it?” Well I guess it’s not, because here we are. I can’t help feeling grateful to be alive every October 20th.

I’m keeping this one short, because I’ve talked a lot about it this day already, but I do want to share one exciting thing: I’m doing a solo show about this! I just got accepted into this year’s Solocom at the PIT, which is their annual festival of comedic solo shows. Yes, that word comedic is in there, which means that while I will talk about fear and broken bones, I’ll also talk about peeing in front of other people and my love of frosting (don’t worry, those two are unrelated). I don’t know the day or time of my show yet, but keep a lookout here! Also, I promise it won’t be the kind of one-person show you’re thinking of when you hear the phrase “one-person show.” There won’t be any wigs or “business.” :D

OK, now that I’ve successfully used this sacred day to promote myself, I will share a deeper thought in an attempt to balance things out:

I was recently doing a meditation on the Calm app where they talked about the Japanese art of kintsugi, which is a way of repairing broken pottery with gold metal or gold-dusted lacquer. It’s a way to celebrate all of the cracks and preserve the evidence of the piece being put back together.

I like to think of myself, post-accident, as kintsugi-d (can I use that as a verb? sure). I have quite a few scars on my body, but they might as well be glittering gold because I embrace them. I celebrate being put back together. And at the risk of getting all emo, I also celebrate the scars you can’t see — the kinds of scars we all have from fights, bad decisions, loss, and so many other tough experiences. Those are also golden. We are still holding together because those moments made us stronger, and maybe helped us learn something, and we should embrace those mended cracks just as much as the parts that feel solid.

Appreciate the parts of you that are solid, and the parts of you that are still being repaired.

And of course, it’s not Alive Day without my favorite soundtrack:

Now go be alive!