Today marks a day unlike any other in my calendar. It is my anniversary—not the kind with candlelit dinners and whispered sweet nothings (though we do plenty of that too)—but my second birthday. The day I chose, or rather, was given the chance to keep on living. This year, it is the sixteenth anniversary of the stroke that rewrote my entire story.
I still remember the moment with a clarity that surprises me. It was an ordinary evening, the kind where plans feel light and full of promise. I was supposed to go out to sushi with my girlfriends. Instead, I found myself clutching my phone, heart hammering, as an alarm louder than any fire siren screamed inside my skull. I called my parents first, my voice cracking with panic. “Something’s wrong,” I gasped. “It’s so loud in my head.” Then I fired off a quick text to the girls: Sorry, I can’t make it tonight. Not feeling well. I hit send, set the phone down, and the world went black.
I did not wake up for the next two weeks.
Those fourteen days were a blur I only know through other people’s stories—my parents’ exhausted faces at my bedside, the beeps of machines, having to be resuscitated back to life, the slow crawl back to consciousness. When I finally opened my eyes, everything had changed. My body felt foreign. (I thought it was a dream that I could wake up from, for another few weeks). My mind had to relearn basic things. The recovery stretched on for years: physical therapy, speech exercises, the quiet frustration of realizing my old life had slipped away while I slept.
The friends I texted that night? We drifted. Life has a way of pruning relationships that no longer fit the new version of you, and that is okay. I do not shoot off last-minute texts to that crew anymore. I just built a quieter, deeper connection since then.
But here is what I have learned after sixteen years: this day is not about mourning what was lost. It is about throwing the biggest, brightest celebration for what was gained.
Every year on this date, my boyfriend turns home into a sanctuary of joy. There are gifts—thoughtful ones that make me laugh and tear up in equal measure. He knows this day is sacred. Eventually we will sit together, most likely with coffee in hand or a special dinner on the table, and marvel at how perfectly the stars aligned in the aftermath of my darkest moment.
If that stroke had never happened, I would not have needed to switch to online school to finish my degree on my own timeline. I would not have taken that Communications class where the professor required us to create a Twitter account for the semester. That account—meant to be a temporary school project—became the bridge that carried me straight to him.
I was deep in my Boston sports and controversial era back then, posting passionately about teams I had only ever watched on TV and opinions that I was no longer afraid to share. Admittedly I became kind of “bitchy.” I had never set foot in the city, but my feed was full of red, blue and silver, stats, and unfiltered excitement. He noticed. I messaged. What started as playful banter about games and rivalries slowly unfolded into something real, something lasting.
At the same time, I was quietly reinventing myself. The long recovery gave me time to reflect on what kind of woman I wanted to be. I studied the art of keeping a home—not out of obligation, but out of love. I learned to create peaceful spaces, to put the man I loved at the center of my efforts without losing myself. I trained myself in patience, in thoughtfulness, in the small daily acts that say “you matter” louder than any grand gesture. And somehow, in doing so, I became exactly the person capable of attracting and holding onto a love like his.
We talk about it often—how my greatest trial became the unlikely matchmaker for our story. Without that terrifying night, without my ultimate bitter and bitchy heart, without the years of healing, without the pivot to online classes and that single Twitter assignment, our paths might never have crossed. I would not be here, in this beautiful life, celebrating sixteen years of survival and counting.
Before I met him, I was constantly reminded that I was not good enough (hence the bitchy-ness)… Now I am all about loving and celebrating!
So today, I choose gratitude. I choose celebration. I choose to look at the scar tissue—both visible and invisible—and see it as proof of resilience. Life does not always give us the path we planned, but sometimes it hands us a detour that leads to something far sweeter than we could have imagined.
Cheers to second birthdays. Here is to surviving. And here is to the love that makes every extra day feel like the greatest gift.
Kat’s Musings 