Feeling my way through the darkness
Guided by a beating heart
I can’t tell where the journey will end
But I know where to start

They tell me I’m too young to understand
They say I’m caught up in a dream
Life will pass me by if I don’t open up my eyes
Well that’s fine by me

~ Avicii: Wake Me Up

It was five years ago yesterday that my guardian angel plummeted down from the heavens and snatched me up. She’d been hovering for quite some time, but wisely choose that moment to wake me up. Literally. She woke me the fuck up.

It was 3.17am and I was driving. It was 3.17am and I was stone sober. But it was 3.17am and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, after a 6-month period of so many other wrong decisions. A caterwauling series of bad choices and reckless behavior simply culminated into that almost fateful night. Me. Guardrail. Done.

You can read about the entire evening here, but in short, my life at that time involved:

• too little eating
• too much drinking
• too little sleep
• too much cardio  
• too little guidance
• too much dating
• too little common sense
• too many reckless risks

Shortly after I almost drove my car into a guardrail and flipped it over, I wrote, “Something or someone is trying to tell me something. Slow down. Wake up. Reassess. Prioritize. Too many risks; not enough self-preservation. Second chances rarely roll into thirds.” I never tested that third chance theory and I never plan to. Thirteen days after I met my guardian angel, I met Jason.