my new year starts now.
trigger warning: there's major carnage in here from a ski accident.
Twelve years ago today—January 21, 2013—I almost wasn’t here anymore. I was in a bad ski accident at Big Sky. I hit a tree. I caught an edge on a double-fall line and had a slide for life. I stopped myself on a tree—first tried to stop myself with my arms, but they did nothing as my face slapped into the tree. I was immediately concussed. My helmet saved my life. When Evan got to me, I apologized over and over—I guess this is just what women do in their most natural, uninhibited state. Evan lifted my goggles up and a pool of blood poured out.
I got tobogganed down the hill. I was immediately put into an ambulance. I asked the medic if I could have a mirror.
“Absolutely not,” he said.
I asked if i could have my phone.
I took this photo of myself…
The fear in my eyes is real. I was in shock, in a panic. My brain wasn’t working correctly and my nose was twice its size and there was blood everywhere. At the Bozeman hospital, they gave me about 40 stitches in my face, but the MRI was inconclusive. There were going to need to life-flight me to Missoula, Montana, where they had a better imaging machine and the state’s only brain surgeon. They didn’t know if I was on the verge of permanent brain damage—or worse.
Evan (my boyfriend of not even two years) said goodbye to me as they loaded me onto a backboard, to take me out to the plane. We decided together that Evan would drive our car to Missoula whilst I flew there. Somehow we tried to insert logic into everything to make it less scary. They bundled me up and covered me with medical blankets that felt a grade above any blanket I’d ever had on my body. It was night-time by this point and in a weird way, I felt like I was being tucked in for bedtime, hopefully not for a long sleep, though. A flight nurse came to the room to guide me out to the plane.
“It’s going to be cold outside, but then we’ll roll you out to the plane and load you up. We should be to Missoula in about 45 minutes.”
As soon as the hospital doors opened, I felt the whoosh of cold. I pictured all the episodes of ER I watched in my formative ages. But in that show, they were always people on backboards going in to the hospital, not out. I never once, in all my viewings of ER, thought about what the patient was seeing. I only thought of what the doctors and nurses were seeing. I never thought of what I would see if I were the one on the gurney.
As I was rolled outside, I immediately noticed the stars. The night was cold and clear and the moon wasn’t anywhere to be found, but the stars were absolute sparkling beauty. I choked up a bit from the stars. I remembered these same stars from summer camp in Texas when I was 12. I remembered these same stars from Yosemite when I was 21. And now I was 27 and I was remembering that these stars have been here my whole life, but I’ve only ever acknowledged them fully a few dozen times and if I was leaving this earth now, I was sorry I didn’t seek them out every night of my entire life.
Being strapped down on a backboard is torturous. It hurts your back, your head, it made no sense why my arms had to be strapped down, too. The stars made me start to cry, but the pain of the backboard and the deafening roar of the private plane made the tears start to stream down my face. One of the flight nurses took note of my tears and rubbed my arm.
“I’m so sorry. We’re almost there. Do you need anything?”
I started to weirdly sob as I asked, between sobs, “Can you loosen… like… every strap?”
The nurse laughed softly and told me they could loosen some. And did. And I felt myself relax a little bit—less claustrophobic all at once as I was able to move my arms and turn my head ever so slightly.
We landed in Missoula and the nurse once again prepped me for the cold. I didn’t care about the cold, I just wanted to make sure the stars were still there. I would stay out in the cold for hours, just to stare at the stars. The plane doors opened, they unloaded me and put me on to a gurney to start wheeling me. I exhaled as I saw them—the stars. The same ones that I had just communed with in Bozeman. The same ones I had danced under as a child in Texas, made out under as a 20-something in Yosemite, wished upon as a lost human in Australia… here they were. The stars in Bozeman and the stars in Missoula were there—making sure I made it okay. Making sure I was sure I notice them, I wanted to see them—over and over, for years to come.
In Missoula, they found that there wasn’t permanent brain damage. There was a broken nose and a brain injury and many stitches, but no need for a brain surgeon. I was released that night. I literally walked out of the hospital with a shirt off my friend’s back, because no one could remember where my shirt ended up—did they cut it off? Probably. Was it like a nice Patagonia top, though? Whatever.
From henceforth, January 21st became my new year day. That day changed everything for me. I started looking to the stars for answers after that day. I started to want more from my writing, my art, my community. It was all there, but I hadn’t asked much of it before my accident. As Evan gave me sponge baths the next couple weeks (I couldn’t lift my arms and I was still so drowsy), I looked at him differently, suddenly realizing he was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. (not realizing my accident had done the same exact thing to Evan. this accident was a big part of our engagement.)
I started living differently—bigger. The first year after my accident, I was in survival-mode. It was mostly just convincing my therapist that “yes, I wanted to get back to skiing as soon as possible after working through this PTSD” and convincing plastic surgeons that “I just want my face to look like it did before the accident… stop trying to up-sell me.”
The second year after my accident, I was set on THRIVING. I did that through my filmmaking and my master’s program at University of Montana. (sometimes it’s so deeply bizarre to me that I don’t make films anymore, but other times it feels like such a closed chapter.)
At some point, it went from singular word goals to a laundry list of resolutions and goals. Here’s how my 23 for 2023 went…
And now my 24 for 2024…
Of course on January 21, 2024, I had no idea I was going to move to Jackson, Wyoming. My resolutions would have been different. But I’m pretty damn proud of the accomplishments despite it all. Especially numbers 4 and 9 coinciding like this. (still so freaking special.) I had my first few pieces published in The Stranger in 2024. (a dream publication… yes, the New York Times is an absolute dream and when I get published in The New Yorker, I will have arrived, but I’ve been day-dreaming about writing for The Stranger for decades. I stan a great alt magazine and The Stranger is the GOAT.) I got my first tattoo.
I did a LOT in 2024. (hello, my husband and I started new jobs and moved a four-year-old to a new home, a new state, a new school, a new world.) But I didn’t give tinned fish a fighting chance, even though Evan got me a few specialties to try. I didn’t get a literary agent. (that will be on the top of my list until it happens.) I didn’t get a tennis coach and I read a FRACTION of what I wanted to, but this is just how life went this last year.
So here we are again. January 21st. Happy New Year! I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so glad I’m here—like, alive! And I’m so glad I have my three-week buffer to refocus my goals. Here I am—oversharing with the internet to keep me honest and keep me motivated. (though, I’m hiding some resolutions here… some are reserved for just me and like 12 of my closest friends.)
I want more of me reading books to Marcelline in my parents’ backyard… after going for a run in the neighborhood I grew up in… the day a super vulnerable piece I wrote was published in one of the best publications in the world. I just want that feeling over and over. Is that too much to ask?
Quick Hits:
Jam of the Week: Mac Miller – Do You Have A Destination?
(I miss Mac Miller. I’ve been playing this album on repeat all weekend. if you haven’t, watch his beautiful Tiny Desk.)
RIP, To This Great One.
(I love how he talks about the moment he knew he wanted to be a painter. I feel the same exact way about this time my second grade teacher told me I was a writer. the difference is I never knew a writer—like a whole-ass professional writer—growing up. ironically, my father is a painter.)Happy Aquarius Season!
(wow, these horoscopes. are yours ringing true? mine could be?? but, again, wow?? p.s. I’m a Taurus.)
Turns Out, She’s A Fellow Taurus.
(I’ve been loving watching Sabalenka play in the Australian Open. I couldn’t help but notice she had all the emerald jewelry on that I dream about. [obviously, I’m never going to buy a necklace like that… y’all, I don’t even own a HOME.] turns out, Aryna’s a fellow Taurus and just drawing power from our May birthstone.)RPDR Szn 17 Is Kinda A Snooze Thus Far.
(except I loved this lip sync.)This Poem Is Perfect.
(so accurate.)I Desperately Need To Make A New Vision Board.
(this feels about right.)Lolz, Basically.
The start of another one. Another year. Are you ready? I think I am. My baby will be five years old. I will enter a whole new decade. I’m gonna do great things—big and small. I know you will, too. Let’s keep each other in the loop, okay?
xxo,
rachel.
Love your energy and heart.