“Is there anyone we can call?” the EMT asks, standing over me as I raise a shaky hand to my left collarbone and feel the bulge that shouldn’t be there. I am sitting on the pavement, my Madewell jeans now covered by a long black streak down the left leg, still wearing my motorcycle helmet. My elbow is shattered into three pieces, and the pain radiates down my arm to my pinky and ring finger, where my wedding band always used to be.

“No, there’s no one. I have no one!”

I panic about who will take my elderly, rescued basset hound for her bedtime walk if I go to the emergency room. I look over at my Vespa — an impractical divorce gift to myself — laying on her side with huge dents and scuffs ruining her beautiful mint green body. My phone and rainbow pride keychain are trapped in the storage compartment under the tan leather seat.

Just a few months before, after undergoing ketamine treatments as a last-ditch effort to ameliorate my relentless existential depression, I told my husband that I couldn’t be married to him anymore because I was meant to be with a woman. Now I am desperately alone in the back of an ambulance experiencing a cataclysmic life event. And yet a feeling of “It’s supposed to be this way” reassures me that just like ending my marriage and coming out as a lesbian, this accident is part of my life path.

A year earlier, when I started the IV ketamine treatments that ultimately led to my sexual awakening, no one warned me that I might experience an ego death. “If this is what death feels like, I’m totally OK with it,” I thought as I sank deeper into the blissful emptiness. I remembered all the times I wanted to end my own life over the years. Suddenly, without the fear of the unknown keeping me from acting, the thought of returning to my “waking life” terrified me. Death seemed like a better option than perpetual self-hatred.

I broke down in tears as the nurse removed the IV from my arm.

“I don’t want to live like this anymore!” I wailed.

My sweet husband came in to hold my hand as I steadied my breathing.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” the nurse told him quietly, as if I wasn’t in the room. “I’ve never seen anyone react this way.”

I thought back to our wedding all those years ago, and how I mistook the deep pit in my stomach for typical wedding day jitters. On the outside, I was smiling, but an unfamiliar voice within was screaming at me to run.

I hated myself for not being able to give my husband the love and intimacy he deserved. The infrequent times we did have sex, I was drunk and closed my eyes tightly and left my body until it was over. I felt broken and ashamed.

Throughout the years, we continued to grow and move forward in our lives, progressing in our careers and relocating to different cities and buying bigger houses, but the feeling that something was off persisted. As the depression worsened, my problematic binge drinking escalated.

I avoided the basement of our starter home because I imagined myself hanging from our cast-iron pipes. When we moved to Texas, I regularly drove home in my tiny convertible in a blackout drunk state, completely disregarding how much it hurt my dear husband, because I honestly didn’t care if I made it back to him or not.

One night, after downing two bottles of red wine, Googling local gay bars and failing another “Am I gay?” quiz online, I shut myself inside our closet, curled into the fetal position, and cried till I passed out.

I emerged from my office one evening and quietly admitted to him, “I think I’m bi. What does that mean?”

I knew the word I wanted to say was “gay,” but I wasn’t ready to utter it yet. I was still hoping we could somehow stay together, that maybe I wasn’t ruining our lives. And how could I possibly know that I’m gay without ever kissing a woman? He took a deep breath and eventually said, “I always knew this was coming.”

I looked down at my hands — half of my fingers were bandaged from picking at my cuticles until they bled. I remembered that wild animals chew off their own feet if caught in a trap as an attempt to save themselves from capture.

“I kept quiet as long as I could. It feels like I don’t have a choice anymore.”

I signed a lease for a small apartment in the city where the stores hang rainbow flags in their windows. With a houseplant in one arm and my basset hound’s leash in the other, I walked into the sun-filled space and felt the words “this is where you heal” rise inside me. I placed the plant on the counter and crumpled to the floor in a heap of tears and wrapped my arms around my dog.

“We’re gonna be OK,” I reassured both of us.

My upbringing hardwired my brain to believe that same-sex attraction was dirty, shameful, and something to be kept secret — locked away and buried so that I could fit into what people wanted for me. It’s like cutting out part of your soul so that you can be loved.

I flourished in my newfound freedom over the next few months. People said they’ve never seen me so happy. I took time to date myself, going to concerts alone, getting dressed up and making dinner reservations for one. I never imagined a fun night out would end with a life-changing accident.

The physical recovery was excruciating. I spent eight weeks lying in my living room waiting for my surgical incisions and bones to heal, and another three months doing physical therapy to regain full range of motion in my elbow and shoulder.

My collection of thrifted travel books stared back at me from their shelf and reminded me of the life I always wanted. Amid overwhelming despair and pain, I realised that I am so lucky to be alive. I thought back to my ego death and remembered being surrounded by divine love and protection, and feeling like something was guiding me toward the life I was meant for. I thought about all the experiences I still hoped to have, and started dreaming of ways to make them happen.

“I think you’ll be really happy with the settlement amount,” my personal injury lawyer said, as I muted the phone so I could burst into tears of joy without judgment. “Just sign the paperwork, come get your check, and you’ll be all set.”

My ex-husband moved home, and met someone to build a new life with. I know he now has the loving marriage he deserves — the one that I could never give him, despite how much I wanted to. Me speaking up — and him letting me go — allowed us both to find happiness.

The travel guides are finally being used, and I’ve discovered the joy of solo trips abroad. I found healing in Mexico, and gratitude in Italy. I recently went to Paris alone, but never felt lonely.

I continue to go on dates, and apart from a casual romance, am yet to find a first girlfriend. I remind myself that I needed this time alone to build community, to make precious friends, to heal physically and emotionally, and to undo a lifetime of hiding.

I am still looking for the love I knew I had to make myself available for when I realised I could no longer be married. I am confident I will feel it in my now-healed bones when I find her. I trust that she is out there, on her way to me, and that we will both know it when the time is right.

That night in the ambulance I had the thought, None of this would be happening if I were still married. Had I not been confronted with an ultimatum from the Universe during that ego death, directing me to speak up or never be happy, I would still be pretending. I would have the comfort and security of a marriage to my best friend, but I would not love myself. Even in that moment of desperation and pain, I knew I had made the right choice by speaking my truth. I felt reassured that this was the divine path that was meant for me all along.

When we are confronted with life-altering choices — “Do I say something? Do I ruin our lives?” — we can make our decision from a place of fear or love. Staying quiet and staying with my ex-husband would have been the path guided by fear. In the face of absolute uncertainty, I chose love by honouring my inner voice.

I know now that I am meant to be here, despite years of wishing that I wasn’t. Though I haven’t yet found my person, I feel more joy than I ever thought possible, and I am so freaking grateful for that.

Erika Hearthstone is a pseudonym of an author who lives in Texas and writes about identity and healing. Her work centres on queerness, spirituality, and courageous self-acceptance, and is working on a collection of personal essays.

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