Banged Up

So, last night, around 7:00 in the evening, I walked across the street to the convenience store. (We needed 7-Up, and cheap red wine...in almost five years, this was the first time I bought wine from the Quickie Mart...)

All was swell- I crossed the busy street unscathed, 7-Up under my arm, cheap wine in my canvas work bag. (I don't take plastic bags from the Quickie Mart, anymore. I always wrangle by hand...trying to be a good citizen of the world, and all.) Walking under the freeway overpass, as I do routinely in the evenings, when we need this or that- emergency chips and salsa, sorbet, chocolate, half and half... walking along, I suddenly found myself flying upward in slow motion, coming down, down, dowwnnn, right on my knees, then boobs and elbows. I saved my face, but sadly, I did it with my wrists. *!##**!!! Grrr. Ouch. Moan. I watched the 7-Up twirl through the air, and land with a crash in some sticks and dirt on the cement. I looked behind me to my right, and saw my work bag at the other end of the strap, still held in my hand, hanging from a sore shoulder. I pushed myself up with instantly achey wrists, onto slightly skinned knees, and from there to upright on my favorite, now severely scuffed, Dansk shoes. (They are my Reverend shoes, and I adore them.)

I gathered the shaken bottle rocket of 7-Up from ten feet away, and teetered stiffly back to the house. I loped up the stairs, set everything on the dining room table, and went to try to wash my shoes. Because I am crazy. My favorite shoes? They rock, man. I dabbed them off with wet toilet paper, and what where moments before brown, nastily scratched toes, are now magically, nearly perfect- shiny.

With the shoes deemed relatively unharmed, I tended to my person. (Wow, I am NEVER that concerned about my clothes. Hmmm. I really love my Rev. shoes.) I grabbed the loot from the store, along with rubbing alcohol and make-up swabs, (nope, don't wear make-up, really, but love those damn cotton squares,) and stepped slowly up the stairs to the living room. I dabbed alcohol at my knees, and cried on wifey, just a little, and crabbed at her like a scraped up kid, which is exactly what I felt like. I can't remember the last time I scraped a knee. Or fell completely down, for that matter. Perfectly sober, looking straight ahead. Walking a walk I've made several times a week for almost five years. Imagine. And when I looked around, there was nothing more than a two-inch stick that could have been responsible for tripping me. No crack in the cement. No bottles or rock or other debris. Just me, falling.

Wifey gave me an ice pack and some Ibuprofen, and uncorked the cheap wine. I wimpered and felt like kind of a baby, and it was comforting while it hurt, in some inexplicable way.

Today, I am sore, stiff, old. I went to work, Ibuprofened up, (which is rare for me, I always forget about things like basic pain soothers,) and no one was the wiser. Tonight, though, I am achey, despite the Ibuprofen. Falling feels somehow surreal.

I told wifey last night that falling down made me acutely aware that, when I was running last year, the post-twenty-plus-mile-long-run pain was honest and achey- and nothing at all like actually feeling hurt. The soreness of victory is much more pleasant than that of falling on thirty year old joints.

Still, falling makes me feel the nostalgia of childhood past, and I enjoy that, in a strange way. I'm not recommending that you go out and hurt yourself. Oh, no. I just feel a peculiar sentiment about it, and thought I'd ramble it out in your direction.

- slightly skinned and sore and happy it's Friday.

Comments

[Rachael]

Oh, sweetie! I'm so sorry! I fell on ice earlier this year, and it sure hurt like hell. Glad wifey was home to take care of you, and I hate to say it, but it makes for really good blogging..... Great post. xo

[Robin]

Ouch! I hope you feel better! smiles