March 2023 Alexis Wyman-LaBelle

March 7, 2016, is a date engraved in my brain forever– not literally of course– but it’s what I call my second birthday. On that unforgettable date, I got into a serious car accident resulting in a significant hospital stay.

Nothing in my life felt exactly “fufilling” but I was just doing what was expected of me. Graduate. Go to college. Decide at the ripe age of 18 what you want to do for the rest of your life. Yeah right. I changed my major four times when I started college. At the end of the first semester, I had already changed my major three times. The fourth time is a charm… right? Well… not exactly. At the beginning of my second semester of college, I was involved in a serious car accident that resulted in a three-month hospital stay that helped me learn how to live again (I mean this quite literally this time). Throughout my hospital stay, I had to learn how to walk again, talk again, write again, breathe again, and do math again… all because of this car accident. Crazy, right?

Nothing made sense to me, but as a teenager, I wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t until a doctor said the words “traumatic brain injury” that the pieces really started to come together… ish. It made sense that I couldn’t talk or do simple math. My brain was impacted by the car accident.

It’s funny that I say the pieces came together when I was told that I had a traumatic brain injury because that was just the beginning. There was something about hearing those words that sparked something in me. I knew my life wasn’t over… it was just beginning.

Let’s fast forward a bit. It’s 2017. I’m learning to live with a traumatic brain injury, slowly navigating the simple tasks that have somehow become… not too simple anymore. I knew that my peers were graduating college soon. I knew I had to go back. But this time? It’s on my terms. I wasn’t playing the people-pleasing game, I was determined to go for me. I enrolled at the University of Maine at Farmington (UMF) for a general education degree. Somehow, I still wasn’t getting that “fulfilling” feeling I thought adults were supposed to get.

I think you know what that meant at this point… changed my major! I decided on psychology. This time, I felt a little spark of fulfillment. How cool would it be to talk to others and help them? Now that… that feels pretty fulfilling… UNTIL you learn that counselors need upwards of eight years of college. That spark went out almost as quickly as it came. But things were on my terms. I was doing this for me. So I knew I had to keep going. So I did.

It wasn’t until my senior year of college (2021) that I got that feeling of fulfillment again. Bear with me here… you’ll never guess what gave me that feeling. No for real, this time it wasn’t changing my major… it was adding a minor! I decided to add a minor in rehabilitation services because there was something that felt so rewarding about really helping others. After all, I wouldn’t be where I am without the help of others. It only felt right.

Are you still with me? Graduation is around the corner, things are good right? Well…um. College is so certain. Where’s the certainty after graduating? Thankfully, I was connected with the staff at UMF and I was able to interview some companies as a part of a class I was in. One company really stood out to me. I interviewed someone at Goodwill Northern New England about what they did (because I really thought they were just a store… little did I know they do so much more). After interviewing a staff member, you’ll never guess what happened… it was that piece of fulfillment I’ve been missing (Cue the bells).

I’ve worked at Goodwill for over a year now. In my position, I go into different high schools across the state and help students with different abilities learn skills for the workforce. The best part? I’m helping the students also feel that sense of fulfillment that I was missing until my mid-twenties.

I wanted to work at Goodwill because the company gives a voice to the people whose voices are often not listened to. There is something so special about my journey to get to this point. Not only am I giving back to the people that helped me, I’m also helping others in their journeys.

And oh wow, that is fulfilling. You see, life with a traumatic brain injury isn’t bad… it’s what you make it to be. And I’m making the best of mine.