I needed to apologize.
I should have been grateful when he helped me up and then kept me from face-planting, instead of being embarrassed and rude. The realization dawned on me seconds after I got back in the car with my lunch and told Dee to go. She looked at me strangely, probably noticing the dirt stains on my shirt and my shorts, but she didn’t ask. I probably said everything I needed to say with my attitude.
When we got back to the house, she dropped me off, again waiting until I was inside to pull away, so she could go to work. I made it into my room, shut the door, and sighed heavily. Changing out of the dirty clothes and into gym shorts and a tank top made me feel a little better, and after washing up, I sat down on the bed and opened my sandwich and my laptop.
Putting the whole experience behind me was the only thing I could do now. If I ever saw that guy again, which in a small town like Ashford wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, I would apologize to him. Otherwise, I needed to let the entire thing go and try to move forward. This was another bit of advice I had gotten from counseling after the accident. I was bound to fall occasionally. The best thing I could do would be to get up, brush myself off, learn what I did wrong, and move on.
It didn’t stop me from feeling down, but it gave me some agency. I no longer felt like I was lost out to sea if I invested in focusing on how I could move on. Part of that was opening the laptop and going over the lists I had begun making the other day. Lists of other options, other things I could do now that being a sideline reporter was, at the very least, put on the back burner for a while.
I knew the dream wasn’t gone—not entirely. With a good prosthetic, I would be able to do anything someone with two legs would be able to do as far as reporting went. But while I mended and adjusted, I was going to have to pause my degree right in the middle. Also interning was not something I was going to be able to do for a bit.
So, what else was my experience and talent good for? That’s what I needed to know. I needed to give myself realistic goals that I could achieve as I worked my way back to what I wanted. I was only twenty. I had time.
But at least, the sandwich was delicious, and I was grateful for that. The incident at the diner and the emotional stress dump that came after it left me feeling completely drained. At least the sandwich seemed to refill some of my energy and spark a little hope that things would be okay.
The lists of things I could do wasn’t great. A lot of them were humdrum ideas, things that technically I could pursue but would bore me to death. I could always get a job doing something menial, just to get in the habit of working again.
The other options were interesting, but there was one I kept coming back to. One that had sparked a kernel of an idea in my mind and wouldn’t let go. I was pretty good on camera and adept at doing basic editing and production work, plus it could be very personal and help me through my goals.
Various social media outlets allowed for monetization, but streaming video was probably the best bet. I could get sponsors eventually, and some vloggers were making enough money to buy houses and fully support themselves. All I needed was enough money to help pay my share and not touch the settlement money. That money needed to stay safe, put away for major medical expenses or other problems I might have over the years that would be unexpected.
It would require building up an audience and doing some heavy-duty marketing of myself, but I had a feeling I could handle that. The basic idea for a channel about the trials of being an amputee seemed like something lots of people would be interested in, and gauging the market, there were only a few out there, and they all had pretty decent responses. With my knowledge and personality, I had a feeling I could do well.
Plus, it would be helpful for my recovery to have a place I could go and vent, discussing the hardships, and the successes, and the lessons learned, all while being able to use the half of a degree I had.
I finished the sandwich and flipped through a few other channels on the subject before returning to the sign-up screen. Taking a deep breath, I created my name and bio, putting up just enough basic information that people could get who I was without being able to stalk me.