Turning point of my life

I got punched in the face so hard my cheek was shattered.

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I had one bone sticking out into my eye socket.

And I was so drunk I didn’t even realize it.

Every Wednesday night before Thanksgiving my friends and I would get together and drink bourbon. A lot of it.

On that particular Wednesday—a week before my final exams at UC Davis Law—we all went to Denny’s at two in the morning to have breakfast. When we were done, one of my friends got into a fight in the parking lot. I stepped in to separate the two.

That’s when I got hit.

I was out cold.

When I came to and stood up my friend stared at me, his mouth gaping and his eyes wide. “Dude! You need to go to the hospital, NOW!”

“I’ll be fine,” I replied. “It’s nothing.”

I’d been in plenty of fights growing up. I was bullied in high school and I fought back.

Besides, I was completely drunk. I couldn’t imagine this being anything serious.

I sat down on the curb.

Sirens blared and blue lights flashed. A police car screeched to a halt and the officers came out. When one of them saw me, he had the same reaction as my friend.

“You need to go the hospital!”

“Thanks Officer, I’m good.”

He shook his head and made a phone call.

When the paramedics came they told me what everyone had been telling me. And I replied stubbornly, again, that I was okay.

“Come have a look in the mirror,” one of them said. “And if you still don’t want to go, we won’t make you.”

When he held it up to my face I gasped.

I ended up needing facial reconstruction surgery. And it turned out bone fragments floating in my eye had almost made me blind.

My father worked at the hospital. He picked me up in the morning and took me home.

I started sobbing uncontrollably in the car. “I’ve ruined my life,” I thought. With mere days left to the exam, I was sure I’d fail.

If I did and I were forced to take the exam again next year, no decent law firm would hire me. Lawyers being lawyers they’d find out about the one-year gap and why it happened and reject me.

I could see my future dissolving in front of my eyes.

It was a watershed moment. There was the old me, getting into fights, drinking, being reckless and destructive. And there was the new me, working hard, being thoughtful, trying to carve out a bright future for myself.

And they could no longer coexist.

I didn’t want to press charges against the guy. But the DA did and they called me to testify. When I showed up to his arraignment I was shocked.

He must have been six foot six and 240 pounds with an ugly scar on the side of his face.

His hands were as big as Big Mac burgers.

He was massive. I felt stupid. No wonder he shattered my face.

Walking around law school with a blue eye and bandages on my face was humiliating. But despite being high and hazy on painkillers, I passed all the exams. And when I say I passed I mean I did very, very well.

To this day I’m not sure how I managed.

I got a job at a prestigious Global 50 law firm fresh out of school. Eventually, I ended up leaving to join a Bitcoin company. And then I founded my own startup dedicated to freelancer financial inclusion.

It was the last time I got into a fight. And it was the last time I got so drunk.

I had made my choice.