I stepped in the pothole of extreme ligamental destruction one year and 8 months ago.
I haven’t run, really, for twenty months. I haven’t jumped for twenty months. I haven’t danced fully, I haven’t hiked. I’ve done a lot of physical therapy, some 16 months of it. Nearly two babies worth. And my ankle still isn’t mine again, isn’t whole again and I am so fucking tired. I’m ready to be done with this. I am not interested in healing, I am interested in healed. Fixed. Perfect. Strong.
I am tired and I am jealous. I am jealous of everyone who is moving around like it is no big deal. Like anyone can do it. I am so jealous of the people who have never been hurt, who somehow, magically, don’t get fucking hurt. I am jealous of Theresa who bounces around the kitchen like bouncing is fun! and easy! and full of whee! I wish I had that. I wish there wasn’t this fear, pretty regular and pretty unrelenting, of reinjury. I wish there wasn’t this knot of nausea in my stomach. I wish that this entry didn’t make me want to cry.
What I want to express here is that a bum ankle is not the end of the world, I know this. It is not a tragedy. But it was a big ass, deep pothole, and it swallowed a bit of my soul. It is a slow and uncertain recovery, and the waiting, and the living of a life you do not choose, that doesn’t feel full, is hard and gets harder over time. It wears you down. You get used to it, and by you I mean I, but sometimes then you remember how things were and you are angry. Angry about the present, scared about the future. Pissed that there are so many questions.
The pothole has since been filled so no one else will fall in. I’m glad that happened before the government shuts down. What I lost there is buried under asphalt, a stupid final resting place for a stupid chapter of existence.