It’s a matter of fact life ain’t easy
but they say that from Rough, life turns Breezy
so a smile I keep
and I take a breath deep
(but it’s hard to Breathe In when you’re wheezy)
There once was a girl in the city
Her outlook on life: ~happy*Giddy!
But then she fell down
Broke her knee on the ground
New outlook on life? Not so pretty…
I have a funny story.
It’s about how life sometimes is most humorous when you have little humor left, and the only next place to fall is up.
* * *
Finding myself again afflicted, for the fourth time this year, with a bronchial malady, I was resolved to recuperate– “slow down.” You see, I have a wee tendency to, as is fruitfully dictated by our modern urban culture, “do too much” — I like to call it the Hare Syndrome. Leading research shows the only cure is a “less is more” diagnosis. (Rx=Tortoise).
I don’t not know how to relax; I’m simply chasing the principals of Nietzsche’s Superman, or one who “battle[s] modern values and overcome[s] the flaws of humanity.” A tall order.
So, with this, I pledged I’d back off on social obligations, reign in work hours, go easy on the ole asthmatic lungs, and finally see someone about why I can’t get more than 3 hours of sleep a night. Promise.
(Behind my back, however, I had fingers crossed while I wasn’t looking: work longer. Socialize more. Stay up later. Push harder. This was my pledge manifest.)
I had blood work done to figure out why I haven’t had a period or slept in eight months, and saw a physical therapist to address a wonderful pre-carpel tunnel shoulder affliction, tingly elbows and all. I asked my therapist if perhaps I wasn’t addicted to melodrama? Or a hypochondriac? She said, “no, you’re probably just mortal.”
Brilliant.
I had scheduled a physical therapy appointment during my lunch hour one sunny Monday, and in an effort to get back to work quickly I decided to run the distance — exercise and efficiency, I thought. Kill two birds with one stone. (This is a turning point in the narrative for those who are paying attention)
I sprinted from Van Ness @ Sutter to the TransAmerica building (for you non-San Francisco folks, that’s just under two miles)– no biggie.
But I was running downhill and I was running hard and I was running out of shape but damn did it feel good – I was running! – to zip through the financial district in my new tennis shoes tightly tied and feeling my youth and then something in that moment told me I never took a moment to pause when perhaps, don’t know why, should have.
The rest of the day: easy, breezy.
For the next two days, however, my right knee proceeded to swell — slowly as if a sneaking child– to the size of a grapefruit.
And then came the fall. (This, for those still looking for a plot line, is the climax of the story).
Doing laundry one night, with knee aching but ignored– brushed aside as another pesky detail of life to be overcome rather than addressed– I headed downstairs to remove the delicates fresh from the spin cycle and load up the next. Stepping precariously on this newfound inconvenience, and with laundry basket in hand, I caught the edge of the top stair, the worn navy blue carpet easily acquiescing to my weight. I slipped–
I’ve worked very hard to create for myself a Life Independent. I’m a “modern” woman; I self-support; I take pride in my autonomy; I am emotionally open but without vulnerability; I enjoy but don’t need others…I am full of bullshit. I tell myself I’m career-bound but furtively dream of marriage and children and dog to disrupt this path of success I seem to be sprinting.
Tumbling down the flight of stairs, the basket of dirty clothes cart-wheeling after me, I suddenly realized how funny this all had become: I was living a crab-shell of a life-fragile: thick cover but with all the squishy gut-less insides sloshing about.
Because, when I got to the bottom of the stairwell, hitting the cold marble floor with a grimace and a thud, I could not get up for the life of me. My knee was bent back underneath me at an unnatural angle, the right ankle tweaked and screaming.
I sat there in a snowfall of white cotton, crying then laughing, because I had no one to pick me up; I had planned it that way.
The next day I was on crutches with possible surgery and a hand-full of painkillers. I sat on the empty hardwood floor of my studio scheming, determined to get through the next week without asking for help.
