A year ago tonight, as part of a dance routine, I jumped over my friend Matt’s head and tore my ACL. As I’ve joked since, I didn’t stick the landing. But seriously, y’all, it was an ordeal. Although I didn’t feel much pain during or after the injury, it was bad enough that I had to have surgery three weeks later (the day after Christmas) and six months of physical therapy after that. A year out, I’m proud to say I’ve come a long way. I can dance again. I can–sort of–hop. Granted, I still have trouble lowering myself down using only my left leg, but considering the fact that this time last year it took three people and fifteen minutes to change my pants, I’ll take it.

Perspective is everything.

For the last year I’ve wondered exactly what happened that night. The answer I’ve given anyone who’s asked is that maybe I landed wrong, like didn’t get feet underneath me or whatever. Maybe the floor was slick. Maybe it was my shoes. They WERE way too big for my feet. Well, until this last week I never had the courage to watch the video and find out. (That’s right, my disaster was caught on film.) I kept thinking, I don’t want to WATCH my body falling apart. But this last week I finally got the guts. I thought, The worst is over, I can handle it. I want to know what happened.

So I watched the video.

Best I can tell, I didn’t get quite high enough, then my left foot landed before my right one on a bit of an angle. Then the worst happened. Check out the still from the video below. It looks like I’m impersonating Elvis Presley, but in fact my left knee is going out to lunch. Don’t worry–I’m NOT going to share the actual video (but our rehearsal from the night before is posted at the conclusion of tonight’s blog). The injury is honestly not TOO painful to watch, but it’s not comfortable either. The difficult part I have trouble viewing is the rest of the routine, in which my face flinches and my body flops around like a fish out of water. I guess I’m embarrassed to show it. Still, looking back, I’m proud I finished the routine at all. Once it was over, I couldn’t even stand on my own. Matt had to assist me off the dance floor, at which point I sat down and didn’t stand unassisted for over two weeks.

In other words, I’m pretty much a badass for not collapsing as soon as the injury occurred.

I’ve spent most of today lying in bed, resting and watching Lindy Hop videos. There’s a big competition this weekend, and they’re live-streaming the finals for all the contests. Before my injury, I would have been jealous. I would have compared myself to the best in the world and thought, They’re so much better than I am. I wish that were me. Having survived last year’s trauma, however, now I’m just happy to be able to dance at all. Several of the couples I watched today–honestly–screwed up some of their lifts. Nobody I saw limped off the dance floor, but the fact is that even if you’re an awesome dancer and rehearse something a hundred times, things can still go wrong. Shit happens. Your life can change in the blink of an eye.

So be grateful.

I’ve thought about this a lot today, the idea that we spend so much time comparing ourselves to others. And for what? Recently I’ve been culling my Facebook friends, and a number of the people I’m digitally divorcing are people I’ve looked up to, been jealous of, and wanted approval from for one reason or another. Alas, for all my wanting to be seen by and approved of by these people, I’ve gotten peanuts. (They have their own problems.) This is just as well. I could spend the next ten years wanting someone else’s talent, and it will never be mine because it belongs to them. (What’s theirs is theirs and what’s mine is mine.) Absent my judgment of or wanting something from someone else, their talent IS mine, in that I get to watch and enjoy it. This is what I’ve really leaned into this last year–I know what I’ve got and I know what I don’t got, and that’s okay. Talent or no talent, looks or no looks, knees that work or don’t, I have everything I need in order to love, be loved, and be happy. In short, I have me.

Not me as I wish I were, but me as I am.

This is enough.