Thread by @TaxedThoughts

This is the anniversary of the biggest, scariest, most wonderful change in my life. The story is kinda long... 7 years ago today at about 1 a.m. EST I went to sleep a brash, cocky, self-absorbed, arrogant person without a care in the world. The next morning I didn't wake up.

Instead, my best friend from high school and companion on the road trip we were currently taking found me sprawled out on the floor in the midst of a tonic-clonic seizure. Apparently, the shakes of my leg caused me to kick the couch he was sleeping on multiple times.

Knowing that I wasn't epileptic, he proceeded to call the EMTs right away. I seized until they arrived, I seized in the back of the bus, and I seized right up until the doctors put me into a medically induced coma. They call it status epilepticus, a state of persistent seizures.

I lived in Chicago at the time so my friend called my parents. My mother was recovering in the hospital at the time but my father flew to California and sat by my bed for 19 days, 13 of which I was in a coma. As he sat there, things got worse, not better.

I contracted hospital-acquired pneumonia (I don't blame the hospital), and not long afterward my kidneys started to shut down. I was put on dialysis and my father and sister started to think bad thoughts as they sat there by my bed. I slept through all of it.

For 13 days of my life, almost none of my vital functions were performed by my body. I was kept alive by a hospital's machines and my own beating heart. This picture is me lying in a bed not worrying about a thing while a doctor who liked my father came to visit after her shift.

After a while, I decided to wake up. It wasn't' really a decision, and to this day I'm not exactly sure what all happened, but I woke up. Groggy at first, basically non-existent for two days. When I could, I spent a while remembering how to walk and doing rehab.

After I woke up, while I was lying in the hospital bed pretty aware of my surroundings, I realized something. If I had died that day my funeral would have had approximately 10 attendees. Mom, dad, brother, sister, two best friends, their girlfriends, maybe a couple aunts.

I was a jerk as a teen and young adult. I was loud, annoying, a thrill-seeking criminal, and often angry. I was eager to cause trouble and slow to help others. I was taking out my frustration on the world and I wasn't making any friends or allies.

It wasn't hard to hate authority when all they did was tell me I was wrong, bad, or worthless. It wasn't hard to be angry as I got kicked out of three high schools, it was easy to take out my anger on the world when if I didn't build relationships with anyone in that world.

As I sat in that hospital bed I realized that given the choice, I wouldn't go to my own funeral, I wasn't the type of person that I liked. I had almost died having lived my adult life, up to that point, as a person who often detracted from society. But I had a second chance.

I got home and I wanted to find a way to make connections with the world around me, I wanted to change the person I was, I wanted to find what I needed in order to contribute rather than detracting. I wanted to learn how to care about others so they'd care about me in return,

I wanted mutually beneficial relationships that made me the type of person who enjoyed life rather than being a person who fought for myself and only enjoyed the consumables that life has to offer me.

After a little while of taking community college classes that I thought might help me broaden my outlook (all the Philosophy, all the Psych, Women's Studies, African American Studies, Public Speaking, Journalism and the like) I decided to find the thing that would let me help.

I found a position at @LostBoyzInc Over the years at Lost Boyz I've filled a few roles. I was originally an eight-week volunteer, then I was a coach for a season, a coach for multiple seasons, then a board member, then a program coordinator. Now I'm just a coach and board member.

At Lost Boyz, we use Sports-Based Youth Development to work with youths who are having similar life problems to those I had as a teen. We use baseball teams as the driver for a program that incorporates cultural awareness, service learning, and civic engagement.

In an underserved area, Lost Boyz provides tutoring, mentoring, coaching and employment opportunities for over 150 youth a year. While running softball and baseball teams ranging in age from 5-18 Lost Boyz focuses on helping kids build the resilience they need to make it through.

I've found relationships while working at Lost Boyz. I found a man I look up to and admire greatly in my mentor @LavontSr, I've found another mentor and advocate in @meganabartlett my trauma-informed yogi. I've been brought back into the great world that is baseball people.

The best thing I found at Lost Boyz was the chance to mentor young men who face some of the same decisions and mental battles that I faced as a teen who was arrested 13 times. They don't possess the same privilege I do, and their situations are often more dire, but pain is pain.

At this point in time, I find no greater joy in life than being able to help a person who genuinely needs my help, wants my help, and appreciates my help. There is so much good and love that can be spread on a daily basis, sometimes all you have to do it reach out and spread it.

I changed from being a brash, arrogant, cocky SOB to being a sometimes still brash but more often timid and kind baseball coach not because I wanted to be nice, but because I kinda felt like if I didn't I'd be wasting this incredibly short period of time I have here on Earth.

I don't think that the fact that I was able to dedicate 5 years of my life to the non-profit world makes me better than anyone, please don't take this as that. I just know it makes me feel better about my place here in the world and my contribution to it. I got lucky.

Turns out I had adult onset epilepsy. Now blood tests, EEGs, medication, neurologist visits, and the occasional status-epilepticus seizure are a pretty real part of my life. Despite all that, I wouldn't go back to the old me for a million dollars. The old me was a jerk.