I’d like to think I’ve lived long enough now that I really understand the cycle of things. I don’t mean that I can intellectually discuss “life” or that I might mentally say “this is how things are,” but instead, that deep within my soul, I possess true comprehension, acceptance — peace, even — about how it all works. I’d like to think that by now, in my mid-30s, I wouldn’t be surprised or concerned by the largely unsettled or unresolved status of different aspects of my life. 

I sometimes find myself idly wondering how long the actual incident lasted. 7 seconds? 12? I know in moments of crisis, time seems to stand still, and those critical seconds of a traumatic experience seem to stretch much longer in our minds than they do in reality. 

Looking back, I know it didn’t last as long as I felt it did. The number of seconds could probably be shown with the ten fingers of my two hands. I spend 8-10 seconds everyday performing an infinite variety of different tasks, and very few of those short bursts of time ever impact me beyond the moment. But in this case, it’s incredible how a single digit number of seconds has been imprinted upon my memory and impacted my life forever.