Who doesn’t love a Celine Dion power ballad? The power of the lyrics, the strength of her vocals, and, of course, the feeling you get belting out her hits in your car at the top of your lungs. It becomes even more memorable when you pull up next to a car doing this and make eye contact with the driver. 

With each experience brings new memories, core memories that are either shoved down into the darkest of places or those that are acceptable to reminisce about. The memories you shove down in a place that is supposed to not to see the light of day are meant to house those experiences that are either not worth remembering or those that would open the floodgates of emotions like the hover dam. 

I am very talented at shoving memories down to the darkest crevice (it’s actually one of my strengths), never to see the light of day, only to have them reappear when it is completely inappropriate. Trauma. What can I say. Everyone has their own superpower. 

I recently visited the hospital. The hospital was where I had the pleasure of calling my home for a number of weeks. Although I didn’t go back directly to the ICU unit this time, even entering the doors, going up the elevator was as if I had opened the forbidden door I had tried to lose the key for. The instant waft of the notorious hospital smell brought me right back to lying in a hospital bed, being hooked up to tubs and buzzers. Being wheeled to scans and procedures, counting the ceiling tiles as I went from room to room. 

I felt the wave of jitters almost immediately while entering the elevator, which rose along with the increasing beats of my heart ringing in my ears. I couldn’t escape and had to try to cope. I went through my routine of trying to adjust to my environment, but like a rotating billboard in my head, all that I could think was how I was supposed to be the strong one. The one who had it together. I wasn’t the one who was admitted that day; I was there to be the village, the support person. 

Inside the recovery room, all that I could manage to do was sway back and forth to keep my anxiety from going into a full episode and instigate tears. If I could concentrate on moving my weight back and forth in a synced motion, it would distract me from the reminder of exactly where I was. From looking at the cold, sterile silver arms on the beds surrounding me, the classic hospital blanket with the two stripes on the top, and of course, the background beeps and tings from machines monitoring vitals. I thought that there had been enough time that had passed that I wouldn’t be affected to the extent of what my body was reacting to. I assumed that since I was a year and a half out from that small experience of being on death’s door, I would be fine now. I’ve processed, I’ve reflected. Obviously not as much as I need to. Experiencing this onset of an anxiety attack in the middle of the hospital was a surprise. I clearly had more processing work to do. 

After leaving and gathering myself, I felt that I was falling backwards. I was moving forward. Conquering my mountains, small and large. I replayed this day in my mind; it felt for days afterward, scrutinizing my reaction and lack of emotional disguise. In all honesty, it felt like I was failing in my recovery to have such a visceral reaction to just entering back into a building. I failed to mask, to keep it together when I had an important job to be the one in the supportive role this time. We are all our harshest critics. I do realize that this is downplaying the significance of what the hospital means to me, what it represents (hey, there trauma), given my history and the impact that my 2024 escapade with sepsis had forever on my life. 

In 2026, I’ve decided that I’m going to fall forward and not apart. Conquer mountains, no matter what the size, even if I need to go back down and try again.