How many?

Just how many comebacks are allotted to one person before God says
you know what? It’s someone else’s turn.”

I have had so many comebacks that I struggle with the notion of worthiness. A traumatic head injury when I was a child. A near-fatal motorcycle accident as a teenager. Cancer at 31. End stage renal disease that started when I was 17. 2 Staph infections, 2 transplants. I came back from all of them stronger than ever. Other than Scottish heritage, I have no other explanation for my apparent indestructability. Due to the overwhelming good fortune I have experienced I carry around a lot of emotional baggage. Between my periodic bouts with anxiety, the spectre of depression during what I call the “dialysis days” that still haunt me (probably because it was so uncharacteristic of me), the anger over losing my first transplant after only 5 years and the myriad of other shit sandwiches I’ve been forced to eat in the name of my health, I now carry the weight of gratitude. And if I don’t continuously act on that gratitude then you can add guilt to the plethora of heavy emotions I carry.

I know that may sound odd, to portray a wonderful emotion like gratitude as if it were a negative. It certainly isn’t a bad thing at all, I am simply saying that it is as heavy as any other emotion. If one is truly grateful, that gratitude should be present in everything he does going forward. I can’t speak for anyone but myself but as a truly grateful person I feel compelled to incorporate it into everything that I do.

I hope it’s not just a phase. I hope that this feeling of deep gratitude and desire to be worthy of the gifts that I have been granted never fades. I think that after all of these years I have found my calling. I will leave the pursuit of wealth and power to the rest of the world, I will keep it small and local as I share the wisdom that only a life of setbacks and comebacks can provide.

It’s the very least that the Comeback Kid can do.