Episode 1: Perspective

A fair warning: If you are expecting to see my college commitment in this blog, you won't be getting what you are looking for. I will be announcing the news soon! Instead, I'm going to bring to light some critical learning experiences. I bring a different voice to light in my experiences with autism (this is not a typo), athletics, philosophy, theater, and entrepreneurship and aim to enlighten you on important lessons I’ve learned. For the first episode, I will focus on perspective. One common saying is: perspective is in the eyes of the beholder. In reality, perspectives change through experiences with other people or things. My inspiration for this entry stemmed from a conversation I had earlier this week. I was hanging out with three people I had never met until an hour before; one of them asked me what I thought of the world, so I told them, "I'm grateful to exist on this Earth." They then told me, "I'm not," so I asked why. This person then told me about some extremely traumatic events that influenced them to develop an eating disorder, how the world was always against them from the beginning, and ultimately questioned why they exist. I could NEVER go through the things they went through. When I say the things they saw were horrible, I mean it. It is tough not to feel the same emotions as someone else as an empath. So, despite not personally understanding how difficult their circumstances were, I could feel the intense sorrow from what had happened, confusion as to why it happened to them, and trauma from it happening to them. It was dire. That feeling of being stuck is horrible, but it is a place I have been to recently. So, I felt equipped enough to provide them with a new perspective by telling them why I'm grateful to exist. 
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It's Tuesday, September 21, 2021, in week two of the season. I barely missed the bus for the first game of the season at Lehigh because we could only travel nine offensive linemen to the game and I was the tenth. That weekend, I prepared harder than I ever had for the second game against Stetson. I had never played a college game and was ready to make the dream I've had since I was eight come true. On Tuesdays, I had morning meetings and lift, class from 1:30-4:20, and practice at 4:45. I rode my scooter from my room to class like normal and enjoyed a lecture on Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Class ends and I ride my scooter to practice; on the way down to the locker room is a massive hill that I rode twice a week, so it seemed like no big deal to ride it. Until. It. Was. On the way down, I had my hand ready to hit the brake lean on the handle like usual to help slow the scooter down; however, when I hit the brake and leaned back, the scooter snapped at the axle. Oh, shit. BOOM. My head thumped the pavement louder than I'd ever heard a thump before. Somehow, I got right back up. No big deal, right? I carried the scooter over my shoulder, walked to the locker room, and got ready for practice, but it took me 20 minutes instead of 10 because I was so dizzy. Typically, we have a pre-practice circuit to warm up our technique, but I got thrown into the normal warmup (much harder, by the way) because I took so long. Part of our warmups is to lunge on a knee and loosen our hip flexors; I get on a knee and fall right back over. Oh shit. We get to running and drills after stretch, and the dizziness goes away for a little bit. Life feels completely normal again. But then, we got to catch our breath and the dizziness came right back. Everything was spinning around me and I couldn't see straight. I saw stars and colors. Why does this have to happen now? I have to make my dreams come true. 

After the water break came our first team period, where the real tape is for the coaches to determine who plays, so I have to do well. The first play comes and I have to block a freshman on the scout team on my left. Easy. Take two steps, grab him, and drive your feet is the simple version of what I do in this play. The first two steps come and I grab complete air. I missed a massive defensive lineman by four feet. I'm going to destroy this dude next play. It's the same play with the same offensive and defensive formation, but this time going the opposite way, so I have to climb to a linebacker and block a smaller, faster dude. Fine by me. I'm a bull out of a china shop when the ball gets snapped, sprint to the linebacker, bury my head into his chest, and run my feet until he tells me to stop. I can't see anything but colors and stars at this point. After he tells me to stop, I try to go back to the ball, but I can't find it. This isn't good. My teammate grabs me, puts me back where I'm supposed to be, we run another play I can't remember, and I (apparently) end up doing fine. Immediately after the play ends, I run to the sideline and hurl. The dizziness was too much. A trainer sees me hurling and immediately pulls me out of practice. I have no choice but to listen. He tells me we are going to the trainer's for further evaluation in concussion protocol. For context, any form of concussion protocol means no playing for at least a week. This week was my chance to play in a game, and it's gone now? Damn. I hurled again on the way over to the trainer's just thinking about it. 

As soon as I get to the trainer's, I get put into a dark room. I'm still in pads but am so dizzy that I hurl for a third time when I try to take them off. You're pathetic, Luke. The next thing I remember, I wake up from my bed and check the date on my phone. It's October 18. A month passed by and I couldn’t remember any of it. What just happened to a month of my life? It was all gone from my memory. I only remember taking a picture in an ambulance (which felt like a dream, by the way). I checked my phone to see if I had written anything down, and, fortunately, I wrote some notes down subconsciously; however, everything else was gone. Not. One. Thing. How did I finish midterms, and what have I done for a month? Well, I apparently spent twelve days in a dark room and walked to class with sunglasses on for the rest. Welp, there went my chance. I looked at myself in the mirror and I was so much lighter than before. There's no chance the coaches will play me if I make it back because I'm too light and out of practice. I still wanted to make it back for my own good, though. The team was undefeated and didn't need me, but I wanted to be there to see the end of it. After three weeks of vestibular (eyesight) training (also why I wanted to name this blog iSight) and some essential conditioning, I was back on the field for the last two games and got to watch the boys take home a championship. Unfortunately, I was deeply saddened that my dream of playing got stripped by a scooter, confused as to why it was me that it happened to, and traumatized by being braindead for a month. The effects on my mental health were catastrophic when enduring a month being gone. It wasn’t easy in the slightest bit.

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I told this person that I learned to be grateful for existing when it all got stripped away because of the concussion. I couldn't ever experience the exact things they went through, but BOY, could I tell them how I got out of it. Wanna know how? Find activities outside of your walls that you enjoy doing. Getting out of your walls is how you get out of your head. It's why we could have this conversation and why I could help them out; this person left their walls for just a moment so I could enter them and provide some perspective. They then asked, "What activities did you do?" I told them playing as much golf as possible when I got home got me out of my head. Mother Nature is therapeutic; immersing myself in it allowed me to be grateful for existing within it. Not everyone has the chance to live as a human. In fact, the odds of your existence are 1 in 400 trillion. It's up to YOU to make the most of every day because you don't know how long it will last. Once they got this new story and perspective, they sat dead silent for about 20 minutes, typing on their phone. Dead silent. Did I put this kid in a state of trauma? Out of nowhere, when talking to the other two people in the room, this person came up to me with a tear in their eye and a MASSIVE smile on their face; they gave me the biggest hug and said, "Thank you." It was the most sincere thank you that I've ever gotten. I got emotional from them hugging me. They seemed so much more at peace in such a short time, so I will accredit it to perspective. It could've been other things, but they got out of their walls and experienced a new view on life.

We only have one life on this Earth. The odds that you get to be here are RARE. If you ever feel stuck or hopeless, know that you are NOT alone. Talk to people, get out of your walls, and you will have perspective.