On November 24th, 2015 I rolled my car across three lanes of traffic. The next morning, Thanksgiving morning, I had my two middle fingers removed from my left hand and my index finger had to be put back together into something vaguely resembling an appendage. Now as far as amputations go mine isn't that bad. I can still play video games, type, and most other everyday things. I've learned a lot of things in the last year, and these are the biggest ones.

1. Sympathy Is Awesome...Until It's Exhausting.

The day of my accident was flooded with surprising things, but the most shocking were the sheer amounts of sympathy I received. I had people I hadn't spoken to since elementary school sending me messages or posting on my Facebook wall. My friend Jake, one of the first to the hospital, helped me aim while I gave a urine sample without hesitation. The rest of my friends stayed at the hospital with my parents and me until well after visiting hours. The next day, the day of the titular amputation, my high school principal took time from his Thanksgiving to come and see me. He was the first person. Urine Sample Jake and his family packed huge plates of food for my family and I and delivered them to the hospital. My entire extended family on my mother's side poured into my room that evening with even more plates of food and made what so far had kind of been a dour day into a weird, but charming bastardization of Thanksgiving dinner. I got out of the hospital a few days later and spent the next week having visitors at my house left and right. My high school theater teacher cried with me, my dad's coworker brought us dinner, and I must have received 40 phone calls from friends and relatives. Never before had I felt such kindness. I felt like a king for those few days. I realized I was tired of sympathy the first day I left my house. I'd been living in pajamas long enough and wanted to do something normal, so my dad and I went to a high school basketball game. As soon as I walked through the gym doors I felt it, one thousand eyes all on me. I was surrounded with attention. People I'd never spoken to in my life were coming up to hug me and tell me how sorry they were, and how they were praying for me. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated the love and support, but I felt like my amputation was about to start defining me, and it did.

2. Amputation Can and Most Times Will Become Your Defining Characteristic (If You Let It).

I've always been the funny one out of my friends in my mind. Sure it's a pretentious assumption, but I feel it was the role I fit most. I wasn't funny 100% of the time, like everyone else I sometimes made jokes that fell flat, or were annoying, or made me look like a straight up asshole, but I was always the best to rely on when a good chuckle was needed. It's what defined me. I could make jokes at the expense of others but more importantly, I could laugh at myself. I was the funny one and that was that. Then my accident happened. Almost overnight I went from Christian: funny, sometimes an asshole, to Christian: amputee, sometimes an asshole. That's not a joke, that's how I started to introduce myself. I expected my amputation to start defining me, so I decided to stay ahead of the game. It worked too. It went from just me defining myself as the guy with eight fingers to my friends doing it too. I became known as Spider-Hand, a name I really do like, due to the fact that I had a Spider-Man tattoo on my arm, and now had a hand resembling the most common formation for shooting webs on the same arm. The thing is, my amputation didn't define me because of anything other than my own fear. I would have stayed Christian: funny, sometimes an asshole, but I was so terrified of becoming the other guy, that I actually forced myself into it. I pigeonholed myself so others wouldn't. Ultimately I would start to slowly become myself again, but being funny isn't all that I lost, so it's taking longer than I thought.

3. After an Amputation, You Lose More Than What the Doctors Cut Off.

I remember thinking about how lucky I was that I was only losing two fingers. I told myself that in just a couple of weeks things would be back to normal. I've never been more wrong about anything in my life. At the time of my accident, I was a (lazy) college freshman. I got to hang out with my friends, who all attended the same school as me, every night. Whether it was a party, or hanging out at our favorite coffee shop, or just chilling in a dorm playing video games, we were almost always together. It wasn't always the most luxurious life, but I was happy. I had all of it taken away from me after my accident. I had to drop out of school because I couldn't go to class and physical therapy. I went from seeing my friends every night to sitting and hoping for a phone call from any of them. It wasn't their fault, they were all away at school, and I was home with my parents, but that didn't make it hurt any less. I missed out on birthday parties, funny stories to be a part of and even drama. Sure they'd be able to come and get me once in a while, but it was a huge step down from what my life used to be. I began to retreat into myself. I became bitter and easily angered. It felt like the universe itself had decided I didn't deserve to be happy and ripped everything I cared about away in one fell swoop. None of this was anybody else's fault. I could've talked to someone about how I felt, but I was content to wallow in my own misery, and just put on a brave face in front of other people. I'd not only lost my fingers but what felt like my entire life. It's taken me a long time, longer than it probably should have, but I've started to put myself back together again.

I'm not the same person I was a year ago, or six months ago, or even two months ago, but I feel like I'm finally getting back to the person I used to be, or maybe even someone better. It feels like I've been falling off my bike for the past year, but I finally landed. I'm ready to pick myself up, bandage the scrapes, and get back on.