The premise
of this blog is to talk about my dog and running, and I realize that I have
done neither of those things in the past few posts. However, I feel that to understand where Lucy,
my running career, and I are today, I need to take a few bird walks. If you are truly dedicated to hearing only about Lucy or only about running, feel free to take a break from me and the blog for
a bit. I’ll get back to it soon, I
promise.
I often state the fact that
everything in life happens for a reason.
Maya happened for a reason and Lucy happened for a reason. NYC happened for a reason, and Seattle is
still working its way into its reason.
But I have yet to come up with a legitimate reason for why, in November
2008, the powers that be up above decided I needed to sprain my ankle. Maybe the reason is hidden somewhere I can’t
see it. Maybe I needed to sprain my
ankle in order to avoid something else awful that may have happened to me otherwise. Maybe I needed to sprain my ankle so that I
would suck it up and put a last ditch effort into training my crazy dog. Who knows?
But here’s the story anyways…if you by any chance deduce some sort of
reason behind the struggle, please let me know.
In the ‘08-‘09
football season, the Seattle Seahawks sucked.
This is not to say that they don’t still or haven’t since, but that
season they seemed especially bad. So
bad in fact, that tickets to games could be obtained for less than $50 on
craigslist. I was never a football fan—or
any pro sports fan for that matter. I
had never been to a single pro anything
game, but that season my Boxcar friends and I went to at least 5 or 6 games at
Qwest Field. Part of the Boxcar clan had
season tickets and set up a tailgate under the Alaskan Way Viaduct near the
stadium before every game. It was easy
to grab a set of tickets off craigslist the day before the game and stumble
down to the stadium early Sunday morning.
The craziness of a pro football game was new and exciting to me. I couldn’t get enough. I remember the pre-game tailgating to be the
best part of the game, and often our group wouldn’t actually make it into the
stadium until the end of the 1st quarter, and sometimes well into
the 2nd. I don’t need to go
into the details of all of the games we went to that year. They all kind of blend together anyways. If you’ve ever been to a football game, you
probably know. And if you haven’t, try
to make it to at least one in your lifetime.
They’re pretty fun.
It was at
one of these Seahawks games that I sprained my ankle. I remember it was sometime after Halloween,
but sometime before mid November. I don’t
remember who tailgated with us that day.
I don’t know who the away team was.
I don’t know where our seats were.
I have no idea who won the game.
But I do remember spraining my ankle.
Clear as day.
I remember
leaving the stadium with Sierra, her boyfriend at the time, and his best
friend. I remember walking down the
street, Sierra and her boyfriend in front of me. The best friend and I were walking next to
each other, talking (about what, I don’t know). I remember getting to the corner, stopping in
the massive crowd of people waiting to cross the street. I remember the exact corner. I get flashbacks every time I drive by. I remember turning to the best friend to make
a comment as the light changed and the crowd walked across the street. I remember taking a few steps forward, and
then I remember being in the gutter and feeling a blinding, mind-numbing pain. And then I don’t remember anything else until
we got to the emergency room.
You may
think I’m a wuss. I know there are
things in life much more painful than spraining an ankle. But I have never felt them before. I never broke any bones as a child, I’ve
never given birth, I’ve never even had stitches. My worst injury as a child was in 7th
grade when I did a cartwheel on the balance beam and instead of landing on the
beam, I landed flat footed on the ground that lay 4 feet below. Instead of my knee giving way and bending forward
as it should have when the full weight of my body was propelled along the
length of my left leg and into my foot, my knee gave way in the opposite
direction, hyperextending it. I remember
this being pretty painful, but I remember being more excited that my hot,
blonde, and muscular gymnastics coach carried me like a knight in shining armor
all the way through the high school to the physical therapist’s room. I was on crutches for a weekend. I consider myself very lucky that this is the
worst thing that has ever befallen me.
When I
sprained my ankle, it was the worst pain I had ever felt. After twisting my ankle on the curb that was
obviously a little closer than I had thought it was, memory finally picks up in
the hospital—apparently I was too blinded by pain and tears to remember the taxi
ride we took to the hospital or how they got me into the hospital. I know I certainly didn’t walk myself
in. I remember sitting on the x-ray
table, wincing every time they touched me.
As I sat there, I’d feel fine for a minute until suddenly I’d feel a new
wave of pain and the tears would start pouring again. Sierra and her boyfriend sat there with me
the whole time, trying their best to make me laugh.
What I
remember most about the whole thing though, was how weird it felt to cry like
that. I’m not a crier. As weird as it may sound while I expose my
life story to the world, I’m not someone who is particularly good at expressing
vulnerable emotions. I don’t like people
feeling sorry for me. I don’t like
people knowing that I’m hurting and I certainly don’t like people seeing me
cry. I like to be viewed as a strong,
independent person, and crying spoils that façade. Before I sprained my ankle, the last time I
remembered crying that hard was when my dad took me to the dog shelter to give
my childhood dog away before I went to college (which is a whole other
story). Before that, I don’t remember
crying that hard, ever.
As I sat on
the examining table, eyes puffy and red, bursts of tears continuing
uncontrolled, I remember thinking, wow,
it kind of feels good to do this. I
liked the puffy, itchy eye feeling. It
made me feel like I’d just expelled a lot of crappy things out of my body that
didn’t belong. I liked the sensation of
the tears streaming down my cheeks, salty drips landing in the corners of my
mouth. I like the polka dots of dampness
the tears left on my sweatshirt. It felt
like I’d just cried everything out that had been sitting in my body waiting to
be cried out since I was in middle school.
The heartbreak of my first crush.
The sadness of losing a good friend.
The painful struggle of being shy and uneasy about myself in high
school. The heartbreak of my first
boyfriend. The heartbreak of all the
boys that never became the person I wanted them to be. The frustration of NYC. The anger of my situation at my job my first
two years of teaching in Brooklyn. The
fear I had of adjusting successfully in a new city. It all came out.
And there
it is! I found my reason. Maybe the powers that be up above wanted to
teach me how to cry. It was a pretty painful,
forceful lesson, but it made a chip in the shield of armor I’d formed around my
tear ducts. Since then, I’ve cried quite
a few more times. This doesn’t mean I’m
sadder than I used to be. The opposite
is true. But, I’ve learned the value of
a good cry. Whether it’s over a
heartfelt TV show, over a sad movie, over a heartbreak, over the loss of a family
pet, or the ultimate acknowledgement of a long past disappointment, I have no
problem letting myself cry now when the tears want to come. I’m still not even close to 100% comfortable
crying in public, but I’m much closer.
From now on
I can say that spraining my ankle happened for a reason. Spraining my ankle taught me how to enjoy a
good cry. And everyone should know how
to do that.
 |
| Only an HLM will proudly photograph you and force you to smile in your misery. |
P.S. If by any chance you’ve noticed that purple widget up
at the top of my blog on the right and haven’t clicked on it yet, please
do! I’m raising money for the Leukemia
and Lymphoma Society as I train for my third marathon and I want to get $1000
in the bank for them by March 1st.
Help me and donate to this great cause!
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