Dispatches from the bright side

Posted on by Alia S.

Today marks one month of the fracture (fractious?) waiting game. With a bit of luck, that’s halfway to walking—but given that I managed to break four metatarsals within sight of my own bed, I’m, uh … not making assumptions. In any case, it seems a good time to review some aspects of this thing that I appreciate:

1) I’m (thus far) not in a cast. Nothing to sign, but I can shower and get jeans on—which is critical, because who can stay positive in cargo pants?

2) There’s no treatment for pathological fear of dependency so effective as being literally unable to stand on your own feet. Beyond the rides and food provided by my (excellent) friends, there is also The Kindness of Strangers—such as crowd-control from the guy on BART who cleared my way to the 19th Street transfer by screaming at the packed car, “MAKE A HOLE! MAKE A HOLE! MAKE A GODDAMN HOLE!”

Big fans of my new crutches include this otter, who examined them at length, and the elderly man in the radiology waiting room who deemed them “fly-ass sticks.” He paused to reflect and then added, “Look like Star Wars.”

3) Navigating my apartment has become a fun bouldering problem featuring countertop mantles and crimps on crown moulding. Plus, all the hopping and one-legged squats are on my weak side, so in a way my current problem is just PT bootcamp for the last one. It’s not a muscle imbalance if both sides are janky, right?

4) My new neighborhood is beautiful and quirky and, like so many things of that description, also exhausting and impractical. The exciting sidewalk terrain has helped me transition quickly from dismay that I’m losing fitness to immense relief that I had any to start with. If I’m going to spend months hopping everywhere, at least I accidentally trained for it.

This is the last of eight
Easter Way, my route to the bus line of last resort. This is one in a series of eight staircases that gains you 150 feet in a tenth of a mile, assuming you don’t have a heart attack first.

5) For all my smartphone angst, I’ll admit they make gimping in 2015 easier than ever. I can track buses, summon cabs when said buses inexplicably disappear, and then spend the ride browsing Instagram for pictures of people who have broken themselves more extensively than I did. I call this “maintaining perspective.”

6) This particular injury comes with a built-in deterrent against one of my most dangerous coping methods for boredom, namely, online shoe shopping. The inventory of things I have not purchased primarily because my right foot wouldn’t fit into them is like a twisted fantasy of Imelda Marcos and the Zappos UX lead. All for the best.

Sorel, what the actual fuck.
Seriously, Sorel, what the actual fuck?

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