Part Three · The Invitation
19
I'll Be Fine
Sometimes “I'll be fine” isn't reassurance. It's distance.
Defining Moments™ · A Memoir of Becoming
I'll Be Fine.
A few pages from Chapter Nineteen.
Read the cadence. Then decide whether you want to keep going.
“I'll be okay.”
“I'll be fine.”
I had said versions of those words many times in my life.
Usually, I meant them.
Or at least I believed I did.
They were reassuring words.
Words designed to reduce someone else's worry.
Words that said:
You don't need to change your plans because of me.
I can handle this.
Don't worry.
But after July 9, 2026, I began to hear those words differently.
Because only weeks earlier, my wife had already rushed home for me.
On May 29, I was rushed to the emergency room with pulmonary emboli, deep vein thrombosis, and atrial fibrillation.
Life changed quickly.
Again.
Misato came home.
There wasn't much philosophical discussion about it.
Her husband was in the hospital.
She came home.
That is what she did.
And I needed her.
Even if some part of me resisted admitting how much.
I eventually left the hospital on June 1.
Then came June 2.
Day One.
Thirty-six days of paying attention.
Thirty-six days of learning about recovery.
Thirty-six days of confronting the difference between strength and stubbornness.
Thirty-six days of conversations between the person I had been and the person I was becoming.
The numbers improved.
My confidence improved.
Life began moving again.
And eventually Misato had to move again too.
She had work.
Responsibilities.
A business trip to Malaysia.
Life could not remain suspended around my recovery forever.
Nor did I want it to.
She left.
And I was okay.
At least that was the story.
Then came July 9.
The forty-three percent.
The pill bottles.
The motorpacing session.
The Vespa.
The accident.
The ground.
The broken tibia and fibula.
And once again, only weeks after May 29, I needed my wife.
I remember telling her before she came home:
“I'll be okay.”
“I'll be fine.”
Those words sound different to me now.
At the time, I thought I was protecting her.
She was traveling for work.
She had responsibilities.
She had already interrupted her life once because of me.
I didn't want her to have to do it again.
That seemed reasonable.
Loving, even.
But underneath that concern was something else.
Something much older.
I can handle it.
Old Me: Tell her not to come.
Current Me: I already did.
Old Me: Good.
Current Me: Why is that good?
Old Me: Because she'll have to change everything.
Current Me: She changed everything in May.
Old Me: That was different.
Current Me: Why?
Old Me: You were in the hospital.
Current Me: And now?
Old Me: It's a broken leg.