By Kari McBride

“So, when are you going back to work?”

I have danced around this question so many times that I think my dance moves now wear a permanent path. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to answer the question; it was that I didn’t know how. I felt embarrassed, guilty, and a little ashamed that I wasn’t working yet. After all, isn’t our value as a person supposed to come from what we do for a living? At least that’s how it often feels in society today.

Even after four-and-a-half years of brain injury recovery, new autoimmune diagnoses, one close brush with death, daily chronic pain, and a fight for “normalcy,” I still can’t answer this question. But what I can answer is this:

“When am I going to live my life?”

And that answer is: Now.

I am living my life now. It may be true that I was living this life yesterday, and the day before, and the year before, and so on. But I would argue that it was not the same life. I am not the same person today that I was yesterday. And I am certainly not the same person I was before my injury.

My life seems to have been divided into different series: “Before the accident,” and “After the accident.”

I can’t say that one is better than the other. The “before” series ends with me as a single mother, newly graduated with a Master of Social Work, employed as a school social worker, and full of energy for all that life had in store.

The irony is that the “after” series starts the very next day, but features this girl I don’t recognize. She is living in my body, in my house, with my child. She is no longer working, but instead is on extended medical leave. Her new graduate degree lies off to the side, just another piece of paper. Her days are filled with therapy, appointments, medication, and pain. She is living a life I no longer recognize as my own.

“So…when are you going back to work?”

Am I going back? What does it even mean to go back? Life didn’t stop just because I was injured. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. In many ways, life seems to have sped up and rushed past, leaving behind only a blur. The job I had at the time is long gone, posted and filled within a few months. My child is four years older and no longer in elementary school. And that fresh degree is covered in as much dust as its accompanying textbooks.

Yet somehow, I moved forward without going back.

I recently found myself sitting downtown at the state capitol, waiting to meet with my state representative. My stomach was full of knots, and my palms were sweaty. I could feel the early warning signs of a migraine attack and the little daggers piercing my forehead. I had chosen my highland cow tote bag for good luck, and I kept checking to make sure my notes were safely tucked inside.

This meeting was important, and nothing could shake my confidence. It had taken years of lived experience, pain, and hard work to find my own value. The moment was now, and I was ready.

It was on the car ride home that I realized I may not have gone back to work, but I was working. Just in a different way. I am working to be a bold voice when so many are already talking. I am working in a way that brings meaning to my life. I am working in a way that my body and my brain allow.

As it turns out, my social work degree has proved far more valuable in my journey as a patient. I experienced first-hand the value of advocacy, the impact of disability, and the stigma of chronic illness. I fought for my own self-worth and refused to let employment determine my value to society. I am living my life the way I want … the way I can.

So perhaps the question isn’t “When are you going back to work?” but rather:

“How are you living your life now?”

—by Kari McBride